This Ain't A Scene, It's A Fanfic
by Yellowfur
Summary: Sequel to A Little Less Sixteen Candles, a Little More Fanfic.
1. Look Who's Back

**Disclaimer: I do not own this music video or the band it spawned from.**

**First timers to my FOB video fics: this is indeed a fanfic based on the storyy in the video "A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More Touch Me". You know, the vampire one?**

**So... here's the sequel... to be honest, I didn't really expect it to be demanded for so much. Obviously, the title is a homage to the new album and the latest single.**

**And by the way, and saw the new video for it... I saw The Baron there (for any of you first timers, that's what I called the head vampire of the Dandies) and I was all... like... "GAAAH! HE'S THERE!"**

**And last but not least, for all of you people who are sitting here reading my author's notes, thinking "The first thing I'm going to do when she shuts up is report her for not being in the right section!" remember that technically these aren't the real band members (I mean, come on, Andrew probably doesn't really use a rapier and Pete Wentz _probably_ really isn't a vampire), and there isn't another proper category for it, anyway. Plus, would that really satisfy you?**

* * *

The last house of the formerly pleasant suburban gated community began to succumb to the growing flames. Every one of the two or three story houses were pristine, glowing with white walls, tall, neat fences or hedges, and bright green grass. They all lined litter-free streets. The city in the center of the suburban areas was a widely known tourist trap. Lovely hotels were made fit for a king. The restaurants were recognized as Grade-A by cities far and wide. But right now, the most recognizable trait of the city was the fact that it was burning to the ground. 

"You were right! That was fun!" An officer of the anonymous group said, rocking slightly on his feet. He was clad in a black leather jacket, dark jeans, and white T-shirt.

"And we got six or seven new members as well." Another one quietly commented. He had short, white-blonde hair and a strange assortment of black and brown leather belts all over his waist and torso.

"So, what does one need to do to get a higher position in this quaint little group?" A gloomy looking girl asked no one particular person. Her hair shone in the white moonlight, with the dark blue color she had dyed it a short while ago.

"Oh, you're new! And a teen! Get used to your spot for a while!" The first officer replied.

The girl didn't say anything. She smiled, revealing two brand new, shiny, white vampire fangs. "And I'm just fine with that!"

A young woman with a black leather tank covered in buckles and straps of different kinds flipped her thick blonde hair. "It took me forever to get from the lowest of the positions." She stood in front of three other men wearing similar black clothing.

"Are we ready to move on?" A skinny, handsome-faced vampire stepped in front of his group. A roar of happy, enthusiastic shouts and the revving of multiple motorcycle engines at once was the response he got.

The new teen soldier steadied herself on her new chopper. She had ridden a couple of times before, but still was unsure of her own skills in a group that was no doubt skilled on any kind of motorcycle. She clipped on her lucky little keychain, a navy blue cat with silver ears and red eyes. She turned to another member next to her, a dark-haired Hispanic-looking young man near the blond woman. "What do you do for fun in this group again?"

He smiled. "Just what we're doing now! And what we did before to your town! Get members, destroy stuff! And let me tell you the best parts of the place we're going next…"

"What?" She smiled, again revealing the teeth she was already so proud of. The girl never knew her parents, was regarded as a complete freak in her school, and all around had a pretty bad life in her tourist trap of a town, so she was rather happy to see it burn to ashes.

"There are other vampires, so we get to mess them up. But it's even _better _to mess with the heads off these four vampire hunters in the neighborhood. One of which _is _a vampire, but that's a story for another time!"

"Are they tough?"

The blond girl responded for him. "Meh, they take on large numbers pretty well. But it's all a matter of finding their weaknesses."

"How do you know?" The teen was curious.

"Remember that a lot of the people here used to be part of a group in that little town."

The discussion was stopped there when the leader began leading his large group out on their motorcycles.

He was leader of a whole new vampire group. He was glad to be out of the shadow of The Baron, his former leader, and taking the spotlight as the leader of his vampiric biker gang.

Sorel was glad that Peter and his little friends made the mistake of leaving him alive. Though he was more than happy to be where he was now, he decided that he had to be the one to teach them that every mistake comes with a consequence.

* * *

Joe, Andrew, and Pete all sat on the sidewalk. It was the first snow of their town, and it would grow even colder within days. They had run out of things to do inside. A long training session was already taken care off. They had enough food. Their PS2 had finally broken after countless hours of playing (and a few kicks from every boy couldn't have helped matters). The only thing left to do was their current little activity: watch ice melt. 

Joe looked at the icicle he had set down in front of himself. Then he glanced at Andrew's, then at Pete's. "You better hurry up, guys. Mine's going to be just a puddle in the sunset soon."

"You wish!" Pete stared at his icicle, willing it to melt faster in the weak, almost completely set sun.

"You're both wrong. Mine's clearly the melt…-ey…-est." Andrew commented (the sad truth was that none of the three slabs of ice had melted at all).

"What are you doing?" Patrick came out and stood above them all, crossing his arms and tucking on his hat in the cold. Joe and Andrew both wore winter jackets. Pete only wore an ordinary gray hoodie over an ordinary purple shirt. He was trying to grow used to the cold, or at least testing to see how much his vampiric powers resisted the cold. So far, he could see one (rather painful) thing: his vampiric powers had absolutely no affect to resisting the temperature. At least the sun was almost down.

"Watching icicles melt!" Joe said, like it was obvious.

"WELL, GET UP!"

"There's no need to yell!" Andrew jumped up. Pete and Joe followed. "What is it?"

"I heard a ruckus coming from downtown."

"That could mean anything. Maybe people are celebrating the fact that the Dandies are disbanded, the Skinheads fled, and the Punks are in hibernation." Joe suggested.

"Allow me to repeat!" Patrick said. "I heard a ruckus. From town. I heard it _here_. It's worth checking into."

"Did you know your voice cracks and sounds girlish when you get excited?" Andrew commented.

Patrick looked taken aback. "It does not! And you guys have to quit being slackers!"

"We're not slackers! We trained just a little while ago!" Joe stood up. "And it's not _our _fault you sound female."

"Slacker!"

"Female!"

"_Slacker!"_

_"WOMAN!"_

"SHUT UP!" Pete shouted. "And Patrick, he's right. We did train."

"And I kicked your butt!" Joe said happily, almost bouncing up and down.

"I'm not used to fighting non-vampires!" Pete said quickly for his defense.

"And you're probably still healing from your injury that The Baron gave you." Patrick pointed out.

Pete turned around to face Patrick and looked him in the eye. "NO. I'm not. I'm fine. He's gone."

"Are we ready to go into town?" Andrew said quickly, sensing the growing tension all around.

"This is going to be fun!" Pete said. "Haven't met up with any vampires lately! I need the practice."

* * *

"Aren't you cold?" Patrick asked. But an answer was cut off. They had reached the heart of the city. And of course, right in front of them was Sorel and his group.

"What's up, Peter?" Sorel looked up at him.

Pete growled at him. "Pity we didn't murder you when we had the chance!"

"A pity that is. Before I teach you a lesson in the pros of not giving mercy, you haven't met most of my new friends."

"HEY! You aren't speaking all British-like anymore. And you haven't even lost your temper!" Joe pointed out.

"I'm not actually British. Only The Baron was actually British."

"You don't have a monocle either," Andrew observed. "But you _did_ take Livington's rings." This was true, Sorel was wearing several rings, one on each finger of his right hand.

"I was friends with Livington. I'm honoring his memory."

"By robbing his corpse?" Patrick asked skeptically.

"Shut up, dipshit." Sorel pulled out a shiny blade from a long pack on his motorcycle. The sword had a black guard and pommel, and a leather grip. The guard had a bat engraved onto it. The blade was wider than the rapiers Andrew favored, and the edges were grooved. The pommel was shaped like a skull, carved out of obsidian, with rubies for eyes. Overall, the blade appeared to have been made for badasses.

"Why don't I get a sword like that?" Andrew whined.

"Because you're a good guy," one of Sorel's female officers said derogatively.

* * *

**Isn't that the truth.**

**Yay! It's back! Whee! Whee! Whe- okay, I'm done.**

**_The little button right near this text_. Hear that? Andrew's crying because you haven't reviewed yet. Do you want Joe to be next? **


	2. Round 1: Initiated!

**Disclaimer: I do not own much within. Got postcards from my former self saying "how you been?"**

**Yay, new chapter! Action scenes finally start!**

**Everyone say thank you to avatarjk137 for writing the action. I know it may seem like I'm not writing much anymore, since he does so much of the fighting (by so much I mean, like, ninety percent of it so far) but when chapter four's action scenes come, I promise I wrote almost all of it (chapter three will be more angst than action).**

* * *

"You all have motorcycles now? What fun!" Pete commented. 

"For which side?" Sorel asked before mounting his bike.

Sorel signaled to his group, and they all raged on towards Pete, Patrick, Joe, and Andrew, making tons of noise as they went.

"CRAP, look how many there are!" Joe said.

"Yeah, but how many can fight?" Patrick took a few garlic grenades and tossed them at one section of the wave of vampires. Only a couple got knocked down and writhed on the ground.

"That was cool!" Joe said. "But it didn't get many! Use more!" Patrick reached for his pocket for more. But before his hand could make much progress, a sharp needle was shot directly into his right hand.

"OUCH! DAMMIT! I'm a right-handed person!" Patrick used his left hand to pull the needle out. Upon this moment, however, he found another needle shot into his inner left elbow. Another stuck out of his calve and then another unpleasant little needle was shot in his right shoulder.

A blue-haired teenage girl stepped out from the crowd, off her motorcycle. "You're lucky my aim is bad today." She jumped off a couple of other soldiers' bikes and in front of the crowd. She kept her eye on Patrick. "How about we see which is better… my aim or your gadgets?"

"You're on!" Patrick pulled out a couple of other needles and took one of the crossbows off his back.

"Mind if I cut in first?" Andrew swung at the girl with his rapier, but was blocked by the blond girl, who had a rapier similar to his.

"Oh! Look! Another rapier!" Andrew actually looked pretty excited at the prospect of another rapier-wielder to battle.

"And me!" The dark-haired soldier who accompanied the blond girl had one by his side as well.

"This is SO COOL!" Andrew was elated.

Joe sighed. "You're weird…." He looked around. "I guess there's plenty of interesting people for me and Pete to fight with. Isn't that right, Pete?"

Pete ignored him and was already charging the officer with the black leather jacket, mustache, and dark jeans.

"Fine! Who needs you? I'll find other people to fight!" Joe looked at the crowd of vampires. "Hey, wait…" He had a look of realization, which then mixed with anger. "Why do you guys get to engage in fancy duels and stuff and I have ALL THESE PEOPLE to take care of?!" The others didn't pay him any attention. Andrew and Pete were already heavily into their battles, and Patrick seemed to be thinking of a strategy.

"Oh, joy…" Joe cracked his knuckles.

----------

Patrick turned his crossbow sideways, using it as a shield. Six needles landed in the wood frame. He grabbed them, and pulled them out before firing a crossbow bolt. The girl threw another needle at it, hoping to deflect it; however, the stake Patrick launched from the crossbow was much heavier than the needle, so it only changed course a little, and pinned the biker-vampire's loose sleeve to the tree she was using as cover. Patrick shot another stake, and the girl screamed in pain as a stake caught her in the leg. She fell down on one knee, but threw a bunch of daggers as Patrick looked down to load another shot.

Patrick tried to use his crossbow as a shield again, but a knife grazed his shoulder. Also, the knives were stronger than the needles, and the crossbow broke in half.

"That's great," Patrick said as he grabbed another weapon from his backpack, "just great. I only have one more of those!" He turned to shoot some nameless approaching henchman with the electric-net gun he had just pulled out. The henchman hissed in pain as he fell to the pavement, smoking.

Patrick turned back to the girl, but she had pulled herself free from the tree, gotten to her bike, and started it. Patrick fumbled with his net gun, but it had jammed again. He looked up and stood like a deer in (literal) headlights as she accelerated towards him. Suddenly, he tossed the gun at her, knocking her off the bike she hadn't even bothered to fully pull herself onto. However, the bike kept going and slammed Patrick in the chest, knocking him down. "Ow…" he gasped.

----------

"Would some help be too much?!" Andrew yelled at nobody in particular, fighting off two vampires with rapiers. One would thrust forward, clang weapons with Andrew a few times, then back off while the other advanced. It was a good tactic: Andrew was quickly tiring out, while the two vampires only warmed up. Suddenly, Andrew deviated from his normal style by grabbing the sword-hand wrist of the girl, who was currently fighting him. He turned and slashed at the guy, keeping him at bay, and kneed the girl in the jaw. He then jumped backward from a strong horizontal thrust from the guy, but wasn't quite quick enough. The sword's tip sliced a few hairs from his head, and made a skin-deep cut on his forehead.

Also, he had jumped directly into the girl he had kneed, and now she was punching and kicking him in the head and chest. "GET OFF!" Andrew obligingly rolled off, and blocked another downward slash from the guy. He saw the girl coming, and parried her attack, knocking her back off-balance, and slashed toward the guy as hard as he could. The guy blocked instead of dodging, and was rewarded for his effort by his sword breaking under the pressure. He yelled in frustration and pain as his rapier's shards peppered his face. Andrew then turned and blocked another attack from the girl, but she was ready for this and also was ready with a kick in the balls.

"UGH-H-H!" Andrew fell over, clutching his damaged nuts. The two vampires stood over him. The girl's face was triumphant. The guy's face, which contained bits of his own rapier, was more angry and enraged. "I guess neither of you will be helping me up?" Andrew squeaked.

----------

"Do you really think you have a chance against me?" Pete asked. "I beat The Baron, you know."

"Big deal. I'm stronger, faster, and _taller_ than you. I could've beaten The Baron, and I'll certainly beat you."

Pete scowled. "You think you're so special?" He ran toward the arrogant vampire, and threw a punch. His opponent blocked, but Pete uppercut him in the jaw with his other hand. His mustachioed foe went sailing into the air, but flipped and landed on his feet.

"Yeah, I do think I'm special." Pete charged him again, this time jumping into a drop kick. The other vampire let himself fall backwards, dropping under the kick. As Pete flew over him, the vampire punched him in the upper back. Pete spun from the blow and landed hard on his face.

"You're pretty cocky." Pete let his opponent charge this time, and kicked high when he was in range. The vampire caught Pete's foot, which is just what Pete was hoping for. Pete hopped his other foot up and scissor-kicked the vampire to the ground. What he wasn't expecting was his vampiric opponent to have the presence of mind to still hold onto Pete's leg. The vampire got up on one knee and swung Pete into a mailbox by his leg. Pete swore as he got back up. "Actually, you are a nice challenge."

"Thanks. I'm Brandon. Remember the name, for it will be the name of the guy who brings you down!"

Pete grinned. "Why? Do you know another Brandon?"

"Don't insult me. I'm the BEST!" Brandon pulled out a pair of nunchaku, and whirled it around like a master martial artist. He then lunged forward with them. Pete grabbed one end of the 'chucks and yanked, snapping the chain.

"Nunchucks? Seriously…"

"You… you broke them." Brandon looked at his half of the nunchaku sadly, then bashed Pete over the head with it.

"OW! What the hell?" Pete punched Brandon in the jaw, then slammed his shoulder into his chest. Brandon was knocked onto his back, but kicked the advancing Pete in the gut and leaped to his feet. He tried a jump-kick, but Pete sidestepped and elbowed his chest. Brandon rolled away from Pete and ran to his motorcycle.

"Alright, I'm ready to finish this!" Brandon looked like he was ready to ram Pete. He accelerated forward, but Pete jumped out of the way, then kicked back toward the spot where he had been. He would have hit Brandon, but the biker vampire had sped up even more, and Pete's foot got caught in the back wheel. "I'm going to drag you down the road and give you to Sorel, Pete!" Brandon floored the motor, laughing, and Pete got dragged along.

----------

Joe kicked a biker in the gut, causing him to double over in pain, and snapped his neck. Then he used the limp biker as a shield, protecting him from punches, kicks, and knife stabs from several other bikers. He threw the severely wounded vampire into the others, then drew a stake and stabbed at one coming up on his side. Surprisingly, he dodged and the stake only tore his leather jacket. The vampire then kicked Joe into a Yield sign. Sorel was sitting on a bench nearby, drinking beer and eating Milk Duds. "I thought you were supposed to be tough, Joe. You did beat Livington. But my nameless henchmen are doing pretty well against you."

"Your nameless henchmen are pretty tough, compared to most of the Dandies." Joe threw a smoke bomb into a crowd of the bikers, and began hurling stakes into the crowd at random. "I can take them, though."

"You really can't take us," Sorel said. He waved his hand, and his sword floated into the air, began spinning rapidly, and whizzed toward Joe. Joe ducked, but the Yield sign was sawed in half and hit him on the head. Joe grabbed the sign, beat back a few biker vampires, and rolled out of the way of the sword, which had come back for another pass. "We are The Barons!" Sorel announced.

Brandon drove over to Sorel. "Hey, boss, it followed me home. Can I keep it?"

Sorel looked at Pete, who was angry and dazed from being dragged down the street. "Okay, but I think it needs to be taken once more around the block."

"Sure thing!" Brandon began to drive off again.

Joe swept a biker off her feet with the Yield sign. "Hi, Pete! Need some help?"

"Please!" Pete smacked his head on a speed bump, which Brandon had taken in a wheelie.

"Okiedokie!" Joe threw the street sign. It slammed into the motorcycle, knocking it over and throwing both Pete and Brandon clear. "Good thing I took javelin throwing in high school!"

Sorel looked at Pete, who had gotten up and limped over to Joe. "This is getting old… and I'm out of Milk Duds. Barons, kill them!"

* * *

**Sorel sure does like his Milk Duds. I like Biker Sorel better than Dandy Sorel.**

**Three cheers for Blatant Band Placement. Ego cookie to anyone who can guess who "Brandon" is. Come on, fights with Pete? Taller than Pete? New moustache? (Super exaggerated in my fic, but still present) ego?**

**Sorry about the paragraph placement in Patrick's scene. It didn't normally indent at all, then it came in the document manager and was all bunched up, then I had to indent at the last minute, and bla bla bla bla...**

**Oh, and Joe won't be fighting nameless henchmen forever. He'll get someone real for fighting.**


	3. Running in Fear

**Disclaimer: This video and its original plot do not belong to me. What would you do for a Klondike Bar?**

**It occured to me recently that I don't think I have ever seen a photo of Patrick without a hat on (I'll bet there is and I just haven't seen it). Makes me wonder; what is he _hiding_? Baldness? Battle scars? Dandruff? A bad hairdo? Weapons? Candy? The cure for cancer? A badger? Some sort of hideous, repulsive monstrosity that could destroy all of human kind? Or worse, Ryan Seacrest? The last one made me cringe... he doesn't deserve Patrick's hat.**

**Maybe that's where Panic! At The Disco are right now... under his hat... eerie.**

**Okay, now you can read before I give you nightmares.**

* * *

"I guess I should be going," Patrick calmly walked off of find one of his companions. 

"I hope the others held up well," Patrick said to himself. "And I hope Pete realizes the sun will be coming up in about fifteen minutes." His face went blank for a minute. "I hope I stop talking to myself," Patrick was lucky enough to stumble upon Andrew in the next minute, who was in dire need of assistance.

"Andrew! What the hell are you doing? Get up!" Patrick burst in on the two other vampires and Andrew, who was lying on the ground helplessly.

Andrew looked up at Patrick. "Hi Pat… I got kicked in the balls! Heeeellllp…"

"Okay!" Patrick would've given Andrew the thumbs-up, but was too busy drawing a garlic grenade to. After a quick second, he threw it to the guy, who still had rapier in his face.

The guy looked at it. "I wonder if this-" Before he could finish, the grenade exploded. The two officers stumbled against a tree, moaning and clutching their faces.

"That _always _works!" Patrick smiled and helped Andrew up.

"Do you want to go find Pete and Joe now?" Andrew asked. "Because if I remember correctly… Joe had to face a ton of nameless henchmen… and I heard some guy drive by earlier on a motorcycle… he was talking about…" Andrew squinted, trying to remember. "I remember hearing the words 'Pete', 'dragged', and 'Milk Duds'."

"Really? How weird," Patrick looked at the still pained officers. "That girl is cute…"

"Remember what happened last time?" Andrew poked him.

Patrick tensed up. "NO."

* * *

"OH crap!" Joe looked at all the soldiers moving in on him and Pete. "I don't have all the energy I usually have from fighting, and your ankle is probably broken in eighty places!" 

"Scream it to the henchmen _louder_, why don't you?! I don't think the one on the far left heard you!" Pete growled at Joe, as they could hear a couple of soldiers mentioned 'going for the leg'.

"But we've got your back!" Andrew ran over to Joe and Pete and Patrick tossed seven of his garlic grenades into the crowd. "You should hold your nose, Pete."

"Got any more of those?" Joe asked.

"Nah, that was pretty much all of them,"

"I do _not _like this!" Sorel said angrily. "I don't like this AT ALL!" Sorel looked upon all of his henchmen, ninety-five percent of which were writhing in pain in the garlic smoke. The rest, which were only officers who were able to escape, were getting on their motorcycles.

The female officer who fought Andrew ran up to Sorel. "Sir, we have to get out of here! It's almost dawn!"

"I realize this…" Sorel sighed. "Let me just do one more quick thing. Gather up the other officers. Where is that teen girl we got from the previous town?"

"I'm right here!" the blue-haired girl drove up on her motorcycle. She angrily pointed at Patrick. "You! Nerd! I'll get you for this!"

"Nerd? Was that really necessary?" But the girl ignored him and was busy taking orders from Sorel. When he had finished, Sorel looked carefully in the crowd. He telekinetically picked up a sword he had by his motorcycle and tossed it into the crowd precisely, not hitting a henchman. He aimed for Pete, and would've hit him in the torso if he hadn't dodged.

"Dammit!" Sorel swore. "I'll get the sword later… Barons! We're out of here!" Sorel signaled to his group and they followed him out of the street, laughing loudly.

"They recover fast…" Joe commented.

"I love a beautiful dawn…" Andrew looked at the horizon.

"Oh shit! Already?" Pete ducked to the side under the biggest tree he could find, which was mostly dead and had few leaves. He then yelled in pain when he realized he had been dodging and ducking behind things with a badly broken ankle.

"That won't help you when the sun is all the way up…" Patrick commented. "We have to get back."

"Well, my hoodies don't help in the morning! They're only meant for short trips when-" Pete was cut off when he turned to see a little boy tugging on his sweatshirt.

The little boy had a tearstained face. "Mister, can you help me find my mommy? Yesterday, she said she wanted to leave 'cause of all the vampires, and this morning when I woke up, she wasn't there and all her clothes and stuff and the car were gone!" The little boy cried.

"Aww…" Andrew bent down to the kid. "It's okay, little boy. We'll help you find her."

Pete laughed bitterly. "Don't lie to him, dude." He turned to the kid. "You're mom isn't coming back, kid. She left."

This made the boy cry harder. "Why would you say that?!"

Andrew sighed. "Aw, our parents did the same thing, too. Except we were a bit older than you and we…" Andrew realized the boy wouldn't stop crying. He was getting louder.

"Ahh!" Joe covered his ears. "Turn him off! Turn him off! Patrick, do something!"

"Oh what, because I'm the less physical, gadget-handy guy, so I have to be good with kids? I'm terrible with children, you know that! That's so stereotypical of you guys."

Pete rolled his eyes. "Aahh! Stop CRYING, kid! What is your name, anyway? Stop crying and tell us that!"

"My name is-" the boy was cut off when they all looked down at the boy's chest, where a stake had gone through the middle.

"Oh! My good aim is back," Brandon said from behind the little boy, who collapsed.

"You… asshole. You killed a little kid?" Andrew looked at him in disbelief.

"Oh, you are SO going down when I-" Pete stepped out from under the tree towards Brandon but immediately paused. When Brandon looked at him and realized what made him stop, he teleported away.

"What? They can use teleportation?" Patrick said to no one in particular. "Sorel must have known how to…"

"Patrick when you're done talking to yourself AGAIN, you'll realize that we have a situation on hand!" Andrew pointed to Pete, who was rolling on the ground, shouting in pain as his skin was smoking in the morning sunlight.

Joe was trying to communicate with him, occasionally reaching out to try to grab the writhing Pete, but pulled back as to avoid getting accidentally kicked. "Hey! Pete! Calm down for a minute, we just have to… hey! Try to listen to me!"  
"We need a place to duck for cover!" Patrick said.

"Uh…" Andrew looked around, contemplating their meager choices for shelter. "There!" He pointed to a small gas station. The sign that held prices for gas was broken and falling apart, and the pumps were taken apart and clearly unusable, so the shop existed solely for food and other goods.

"The Speedo-Mart?" Joe looked puzzled.

"It's closer than anything else, it doesn't look abandoned… sort of, and besides, it's less likely to be taken over by vampires than other big food shops." Patrick explained for Andrew.

Joe shrugged, but didn't say anymore. He reached down and grabbed Pete by the arms. It was easy to due now, since Pete was still smoking, but was twitching and moaning instead of writhing and yelling.

The group stumbled inside and Joe put Pete down against the wall in the far corner, near refrigerated shelves of sodas.

"Yes, hello? Who's there?" An African-American woman, about in her early twenties, looked at the boys timidly from behind the counter. "What do you want? Go away, I'm armed!"

"Uh…" Joe stared at her. "We just want-"

"Don't suck my blood!" She hid behind the counter again.

"We're not going to suck your blood!" Patrick told her. "My friend just needs a place to rest for a while. Can we stick around here for a while?" He held his hands up, as if trying to show her that they were no harm. "We won't attack you."

"Oh… okay." She came out. "You can stay for a while. I'm just really freaked out with all of these random attacks from these new vampires… they totally dismantled the pumps out there when they came for gas for all their motorcycles…" She sighed and came out from behind the cash register. "I hid when they came in here… they took the beer, cigars, and… most of the candy. Weird, huh?"

"Yeah, weird." Joe looked around at the convenience store and then over to Pete. "You okay over there? Done cooking?"

"Shut up…" Pete used a magazine display case as support to rise himself up. "Ugh… I haven't been out in the sun like that for a while…"

"Hi," The girl smiled shyly and gave a little wave to Pete.

"Hi…" Pete smiled weakly, showing his teeth.

After he smiled, the girl gasped and suddenly dove behind the counter.

"What?! What's wrong?" Andrew looked out the window in case maybe she caught sight of Sorel's gang of Barons coming.

"YOU! You lied to me!" The girl yelled angrily from behind her miniature safe shelter. "GET OUT! GET OUT NOW!"

"Oh, the teeth have you all- no! Don't worry, he won't hurt you!" Patrick looked over at Pete, then back to the girl. "He's not like the others, he wouldn't-" Patrick stopped when the young woman pointed at them with two shotguns. "GET. OUT. NOW." She looked at Pete. "And you, parasite! I can use a stake and take karate and self-defense classes! So get lost!"

Joe stared at her. "But we-"

"SCRAM!"

"Just give us a chance to explain-"

"_GET OUT_!" The girl shrieked. To make her point, she fired a few random shots near the band's heads.

Upon this imminent threat of their lives, they ran out the door quickly. Pete immediately ducked behind the building in the shade. "No way am I going through that again!"

"Well, okay…" Joe went behind the shop with Pete and Patrick and Andy followed. "The only other people in this town are either vampires or going crazy." Joe continued. "So what do we do?"

"Go back to the warehouse, and think of a plan to drive the Barons out of our town!" Andy declared.

"Or what's left of it," Pete commented.

"All in favor of Andrew's plan say 'aye'!" Joe stated. "Aye!"

"Aye!" Andrew immediately put in.

"Aye," Patrick said after a few seconds.

"Yeah, aye, okay." Pete halfheartedly raised his hand.

"To the warehouse! Then the BATMOBILE!" Andrew yelled.

"It's a vigilante-mobile, remember?" Joe added. "TO THE VIGILANTE-MOBILE!"

* * *

**Actually, I recently got word on what is under Patrick's hat. False alarm, people.**

**I wonder what the little boy's name is. I think I'll call him... Lock. I like Lock from The Nightmare Before Christmas; he's one of my favorites. His devil's tail moves without him, did you know that? My brother/co-writer pointed that out to me and now it's ALL I CAN CONCENTRATE ON WHEN I WATCH THE FREAKING MOVIE. AAAGGH! (-pantpant-)**

**Yes, they do have a Vigilante-Mobile. I want one for my Sweet Sixteen!**

**Don't forget to review. It would make me one happy person... or rather person of sorts.**


	4. Round 2: Fight vs Height!

**Disclaimer: I do not own this video or the band. Bandwagon's full, please catch another.**

**Important author's note to new or relatively new readers (actually, a refresher note for readers in general): Before a new reader asks, or before some of you get your hopes up, I want to establish an important factor of the fic. This is NOT and will never be slash. Any slash you see will be purely unintentional. For the record: carrying out an unconscious person, patting someone on the back, men tackling other men, grabbing of the shoulders and shaking sense into someone, all are examples of normal actions that aren't necessarily slash. Pete, Patrick, Joe and Andy are friends. Close friends. Best friends. But not boyfriends (not in this fic, at least).**

**Okay, I'll shut up about the slash...**

**----------**

**Fighting in this chapter. And, get this: I did it all myself! Woo hoo! avatarjk137 was finally cut a break and I did the action. Well... with Pete's moves against the nameless henchmen, I actually took a little liberty with some moves from a recent volume of the manga "Naruto".**

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"I have a plan for driving Sorel away!" Andrew said to Pete. 

"What is it?" Pete plopped down on the couch.

"Hey, don't get comfy, we were going to practice remember?" Patrick said to Pete.

Pete sighed and put his hand over his forehead and eyes. "But Joe and I spent like, four hours straight training yesterday. Give us a break."

"NO, practicing this, fool." Patrick tossed Pete's bass guitar on his lap.

"Oh right, we play music. I must've forgotten."

"I need to say my plaaaaannnn!" Andrew whined.

"Do you smell smoke?" Joe walked in from right in front of the house.

"I have for hours now, so I know it's not us," Pete responded.

"Good enough for me!" Joe picked up his guitar. "Okay, one, two, three, and…"

As if in a pattern with Joe, the front door got knocked down.

"WHAT? Noooo! I just repaired that door!" Patrick whined.

"And I just broke it!" The blue-haired girl from their last fight walked in, followed by Sorel, who had Molotov cocktails floating around his head.

"This is going to be SO much fun!" He said, excited. He telekinetically had a lighter around himself as well, and was lighting them one by one, tossing them around. He stepped out of the way as Pete's new coffin ignited.

Sorel signaled for his gang to rampage the place. "You know what's expected of you all, rampage the place, take anything of value, destroy the technology, and toss them through a wall or something."

Andrew locked eyes with the woman he fought earlier. "Are you angry?"

She growled and threw her rapier into his arm, where it stuck. "Yup… she wants revenge." He grimaced as he pulled it out.

About twenty soldiers came flooding into the house at once. Pete smiled as he grabbed the shoulders of two of them and flipped over and behind the surprised vampires, and kicking them in the backs into the new glass coffee table Patrick had found in a junkyard.

"Agh! I found that myself!" Patrick shouted, distressed at the ruined table. "Such a good deal…"

Pete ignored this as he clobbered two more Barons in the face with a double jump-kick, knocking them back. When two more charged behind him, he grabbed their hands and pulled them forward, elbowing them hard in the face. He then spun around to punch them both hard in the chest, and they went flying across the room.

Sorel didn't look worried in the least as he ate a bag of peanut M&Ms. "So much for those six or so henchmen. They're totally worthless. It's okay though, I just got a few more from the latest neighborhood."  
Patrick jumped away form a soldier and turned to Sorel. "What do you mean 'got some from the last neighborhood'?"

Sorel ignored Patrick and continued eating his candy.

"Hey! Did you not hear me asking you something?" Patrick was getting agitated.

"Did you not see me ignoring you?" Sorel remained calm and raised his hand toward Patrick. He gave a pulse of his mental energy through his palm, and Patrick was knocked back into the wall hard, falling to the ground with the wind knocked out of him. Sorel never looked up. "I swear, people these days." Sorel sighed when he shook his empty paper bag.

Sorel reached into a pocket on his leather jacket for more candy as he simultaneously grabbed Pete's fist, which was inches away from making harsh contact with his face. "Wow, Peter, you sure are predictable!" Without using telekinetic powers, Sorel tossed him suddenly into Andrew, who was busy fighting with the rapier-wielding lieutenants to notice Pete hurtling toward him.

"OH! You're already taking care of the one with the glasses!" Sorel suddenly realized the fight Andrew was having. "My bad! Carry on!"

The blue-haired girl watched Patrick slowly rise. "Man, you're weak. Get up already, that wasn't that bad. And I need to wreak havoc… on you."

"She's a quirky one," Sorel commented to himself while searching the cabinets and refrigerator for candy. "Ugh, do they even have any edible food?"

"Here's some!" Sorel's normally quiet blond lieutenant shouted. Joe was thrown into the refrigerator. Sorel knew enough to dodge right before Joe made impact.

Joe rolled out of the broken shelves. "OW! Crap! That white-blond lieutenant is worse than he looks." He helped himself up with the countertop. "Well, I'm not hurt, but these guys _are_ tough…" He turned around and saw Sorel. "Uh… uh-oh…"

"You're invading my personal space!" Sorel used the same pulse he used on Patrick and Joe went straight into a closet with an already broken door. "Oh, here's some chocolate!" Sorel happily picked up a frozen Milky Way Midnight that had fallen out of the freezer.

"Now, how are my higher rank officers doing?" He observed his surroundings. He smiled at the white-blond lieutenant who looked fierce as he came toward Joe's current damaged place in the closet. He was also satisfied to see Patrick's struggling to constantly dodge and fight back equally to the weapon-wielding girl's barrages. He was instantly disappointed when he saw Andrew being able to keep up with his opponents. "You two over there! Shape up! You outnumber him, kick his ass!"

"Yes sir!" they obediently called back in unison. Andrew thrust his rapier out, but the male lieutenant dodged back, the rapier stopping inches from his face. Ink squirted from the tip of the sword, and the vampire screamed and clutched his blackened eyes. Andrew turned around, but the girl was fast enough to knock the rapier from his hands. It spun through the air and landed in her perfectly manicured hand.

"Now, die on your own sword, bastard!" She yelled, a savage joy in her voice. She thrust it out… and a fireball burst from the hilt end and hit her in the chest, knocking her away.

"Okayyy…" Andrew said, as he caught the sword before it hit the ground. Suddenly, the other lieutenant he had forgotten about charged forward, still mostly blind and screaming like an idiot. Andrew blocked his clumsy sword strike, but the lieutenant kept going, tackling Andrew. His momentum pushed both of them through a nearby doorway.

"Hmm…" Sorel ate the dark chocolate bar. "My henchmen are mostly knocked out or fled… and Brandon and Peter are nowhere to be found." He looked thoughtful. "Maybe I should stop calling him Peter and start calling him… Peter Pan or something…"

----------

Brandon and Pete rolled on top of each other in a vicious struggle, thumping against walls as they eventually made their way down the hall. Brandon kicked Pete into a bedroom. "Your 'house' is complete crap!"

"Much like your moustache?" Pete punched Brandon when he jumped near him.

"Oh go ahead, attack the moustache, Shorty!" Brandon grabbed Pete by the shoulders and kicked him into a poster- and article-laden wall. "You may have just as much _fight_ in you as I do, but I have more _height_ in me than you!"

Pete growled and tackled Brandon with all the poise of a football player.

Brandon landed with a loud "thunk" against the wall. "You think you're so good and strong? Well, you can't do this!" Brandon teleported away from in front of Pete. Pete gasped and whipped around, naturally expecting to see Brandon right behind him.

But he laughed when he saw Brandon with his top half inside the clothes hamper and his legs sticking out. Brandon pulled himself out. "Ew, underpants!" he jumped back and looked disgusted. He scowled at the laughing Pete. "STOP LAUGHING! So I haven't quite mastered it yet! I'm doing better than any of Sorel's other lieutenants!"

Pete laughed harder. "Then I definitely don't want to see them try!" Brandon's face turned red as he scowled harder.

Pete stopped laughing when he suddenly realized Brandon was gone again. Brandon reappeared behind Pete and wrapped his arm around Pete's neck tightly in a chokehold before Pete could do anything about it and started kneeing him in the back. "Ha! Not laughing now, huh?"

Pete struggled out of his grip as Brandon took his turn to laugh. After about five more seconds, Pete reached up, grabbed Brandon's shoulders and used all the strength in him to flip Brandon over his chest and onto the unmade bed in the room. The shock made the frame break, and the mattress and Brandon crashed down.

"UGH!" Brandon lay on the broken mattress.

"Look on the bright side. It's better than the floor!" Pete stood over Brandon with a folding end table over his head.

* * *

**Something else: You may have heard about the album leak of Infinity on High. I hope you don't kill me for saying this, but I very highly encourage you not to download it. It meant so much to FOB, especially Pete, and his little Petey spirits are clearly hit hard.**

**Poor Andrew never got to say his idea...**

**Next chapter: We have something different! Not Pete torture, not even Patrick torment, but the all-new, revolutionary _Joe torture_! Yes, JOE gets his turn to be in the patented (not really patented) Pain Limelight! Oh-oh-oh.**


	5. Bringing Your Work Home With You

**Disclaimer: I own very little within. Kidnap the Sandy Claws.**

**Okay, here you go. New chapter. Fighting. Lots of it. All mine!**

**But avatarjk137 does the stuff in the next chapter. He wanted to. And get this: next chapter, we're finally going to bring in that priest guy from the music video! And have a small reference to our friend Dirty and his role in the video.

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**

"So do you do anything exciting besides hit people?" Joe taunted the blond lieutenant after blocking another one of his hits. The gang member could hit hard but was easy to block and dodge.

The lieutenant stepped away. "Actually, I do! I was sort of hoping to save this for later, but I might as well use it now." The boy's hair grew into a more silvery shade and grew thicker. Suddenly, he was sprouting hair all over his body. His skull changed shape and he dropped on all fours.

"WHOA! YOU'RE A WEREWOLF!"

"Sort of," Sorel answered for the officer, who gave a shrill bark in reply.

"But… you're not looking at a full moon or anything!"

"He doesn't need to! That's stupid!" Sorel continued. He got up and, even though he still had chocolate, he walked over to their refrigerator and looked through it again. "My god, do you ever clean this out? The only things inside are expired milk and stale crackers. Not even any beer!"

"The milk's not expired. It's fine." Joe answered. He would've said more, but the silver wolf lunged at his leg. "Whoa! Get away!" Joe grabbed a pillow from the couch and gave it to the dog to bite instead. He dropped it and lunged again, this time biting Joe on the left hand and clamping down hard.

"OW! The hell!" Joe planted one foot on the dog's chest and tried to pull him off, but was only succeeding in making his injury worse.

"No! Let…" Joe lifted up the still-clamped canine. "…GO!" Joe tossed the dog with all his might across the room, where he slammed into the wall. The dog fell on the ground and was unconscious before being able to transform back into a human.

"Now, I'm not one for animal cruelty, but that's one MEAN dog," Joe commented to no one in particular. He turned to Sorel. "You have no nameless henchmen left. Can I fight you?"

Sorel laughed evilly. "I think you'll regret it,"

"I think I'd like to try!" Joe cracked his knuckles.

"Well, hang on…" Sorel stepped off the counter he was sitting on and called out to the blue-haired teen girl. "You there! Fighting the gadget boy!"

"Yes, sir?" The girl moved jerked her head to dodge a garlic grenade, which flew into the closet and exploded.

"I think you have a stopwatch. Could you set it right now?"

"Yes, sir!" The girl obediently took out a little electronic stopwatch and pressed a couple of buttons. When Patrick charged her, she high-kicked him in the head and he stumbled back. "Just say go!"

"Alright…" Sorel smiled. "Anything more than five minutes with you and it'll mean I'm out of practice. GO!" The girl pressed the timer and turned back to Patrick. "Now, I never taught you any manners like I did Peter. How about I teach you a thing or two I still have left over from my Dandy days?"

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"I don't know your name!" Patrick said to his opponent as he dodged one of her needles. "Come to think of it, I don't know any of your names! Do you even have any?"

"My name isn't important! It doesn't change the fact that you're going to lose!" She smiled evilly and stepped towards him. "I wonder what happens if I do… THIS!" She jumped out, grabbed Patrick's black cap and jumped back again.

Patrick froze. He reached up and felt the top of his head to confirm his horror. He jabbed his finger at her accusingly at the same time he put his forearms over his skull protectively. "YOU DID _NOT_ JUST DO THAT! THAT IS _NOT_ FUNNY! _NOW YOU GIVE ME BACK MY HAT_!"

"Make me!" The cocky teen stuck her tongue out and tried on the cap. "It's a little loose… but it matches my outfit!"

"_RRRRAAAAAAGGHH_!" Patrick lunged at the girl and, forgetting about all of his very convenient and easy-to-reach weapons around him, tackled her head on.

"AAH! Get off, you obsessive, spastic freak!" She tried to push him off, but he was reaching for his hat. She laughed and used one hand to push his head back and the other to hold his hat out of his reach.

"**GIVE IT**!" Patrick got frustrated and hit her in the face. She shrieked and let go of the hat. He lunged forward again, grabbed it, and jumped up. He secured it back on his head. Patrick put his hand to his heart. "You didn't have to take my hat. Why did you do that?"

The vampire ignored him and propped herself up one hand. Her nose was bleeding. "DAMN YOU! You stupid nerd! Look what you did!" She jumped up and reached for her pocket for more needles.

Patrick raised his eyebrows. "Wow, did I do that? Sorry. Are you okay?"

The girl's eyes widened and her scowl grew more intense. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN '_SORRY_'?"

"I was sort of fighting you, I just… I don't know, it seemed different when we were both using weapons then when I just punched you in the face. And you're only a teen girl."

The girl had a look of shock, confusion, and anger. Finally, she threw a needle in his abdomen. "HOW DARE YOU ASK IF I'M OKAY!"

Patrick cringed as he pulled out the needle. "Excuse me?! Yeah, sorry if my heart isn't in the right place for beating young girls!"

"I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!" The girl took out three more needles.

Patrick looked up. "Karma, where are you?" He blocked the needles with his crossbow, and fired a stake. It hit her in the leg, and she fell to her knees.

She looked at him, fury in her eyes. "I… couldn't beat you."

"Yes, and you'll have to pay for it." She looked away to see Brandon hurl a stake at her heart. "Sorel has no need for an assassin who is unable to kill."

Suddenly, the stake was deflected. Patrick had blocked with his Sonic Reverb Cannon, which the stake had bounced harmlessly off of with a metallic clang. "How could you attempt to kill your fellow lieutenant like that?"

"It wasn't very hard. Now step off so I can do it properly." Suddenly, Pete appeared and tackled Brandon, leaving the girl to stare at Patrick, who was obliviously checking his cannon for damage.

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"What's with this rapier?!" Andrew said to himself. "Oh wait! I remember Patrick saying something about this…"

"Don't flashback on me now!" The girl swung at his face.

Andrew dodged easily and jumped backwards. "Gah! C'mon rapier, work for me! Do something! Oooh, what's this do?" Andrew pressed a red button on the handle. A loud, hideously shrill siren went off. "AAAGH!" Andrew shouted and dropped the rapier in a reflex.

"TURN THAT THING OFF!" The girl was too busy yelling at Andrew to notice that he was defenseless from dropping the rapier.

"I'm trying! I'm trying! Aagh! Aagh!" Andrew picked up the rapier and fumbled with it, pressing multiple buttons by accident. More ink squirted out, a digital clock clicked on the handle, the electronics in the room shorted out, rock music started playing from it, and a little bird from a cuckoo clock sprang out of it, making the stereotypical 'cuckoo' noise. It suddenly turned red hot and Andrew dropped it, burning his hands. "OUCH! This is like some sort of friggin' rapier from HELL! What was Patrick smoking?!"

"HEY!" Patrick called out. "I don't do that kind of thing!"

"How do you work your rapier?!" Andrew called out above the still blaring siren.

"_I told you_! Didn't you pay attention?"

"_No_!"

"THEN YOU'RE ON YOUR OWN! I'M BUSY!"

"KEEP IT DOWN; I'M TRYING TO KILL SOMEONE OVER HERE!" Sorel was busy fighting Joe, even though he was spending most of it blocking his hits.

"TURN THAT OFF!" The girl stomped the rapier in an effort to shut it up.

"WHAT IS THAT NOISE?!" The girl's companion was still half-blind from the ink he got squirted in his eyes from the rapier.

Pete and Brandon, who both looked very beat up, stumbled out from the hall. "WHAT IS GOING ON?!" They both shouted in unison.

Andrew pressed the same button that turned the alarm on. "Okay, okay, I got it, I got it."

"Now where were we?" Sorel punched Joe viciously in the face. He stumbled back. "Okay: Manners Lesson Numbers One!"

"I don't want your retarded lessons! Just fight like a relatively normal vampire!"

Sorel used his telekinetic power to turn Joe around and smash his face into the wall. Joe dropped to his knees and spat out a mouthful of blood.

"Yeah, there's number one: don't talk with your mouth full." Sorel smiled.

"That's not funny!" Joe wiped his chin and aimed a hit at Sorel's chest. Sorel veered back and used his powers again to slam Joe's arm onto a table. He then kicked him back into the wall. "That's lesson two: no elbows on the table! I wonder what lesson three will be… maybe-"

"SHUT UP!" Joe finally landed an uppercut onto Sorel's face. Sorel regained himself quickly and did the same move, but harder. "Two lessons now: do unto others as they would do unto you! And…" Sorel blasted him across the room. "Listen to people when they are talking to you!"

Joe grabbed the television for support to stand himself up. He grabbed a stake from on top of the TV (yes, they have stakes in a big mug on top of the TV) and tossed it at Sorel.

The stake stopped in midair. "Lesson number five: it isn't exactly manners, but don't toss things at a telekinetic. Fool." Sorel split the stake into three pieces while it was still in the air. Joe took the opportunity of Sorel's distraction to charge at him. Sorel realized what he was doing and made a telekinetic shield in front of himself. But he didn't expect Joe to suddenly veer to the side, and tackle him directly at his ribcage. Sorel fell to the floor and went sliding to the side a few feet.

"Wow, you actually landed a hit. Be assured you _won't_ land another." Sorel steadied himself, with a malicious look on his face. He telekinetically picked up Joe and hurled him into the walls, tossing him three times into three walls with great force. .

After dropping Joe, Sorel turned around to the refrigerator. "This is what I think about your lousy refrigerator and its nasty contents!" Sorel pulled the fridge out of its socket and tossed it at Joe.

"HOLY CRAP!" Joe shouted as he just barely managed to dodge the refrigerator itself. But Sorel had predicted that, and whipped the door open with a great enough force that when it hit Joe, he dropped to his knees.

"Ouch…" Joe muttered. He looked up to see a big biker boot about to make contact with his face. "Oh, that's just-"

The leather boot made impact to his face with a loud "thwack". Joe fell to the floor backwards, clutching his face, barely conscious.

Sorel sighed. "Now, what to do with you? I feel a strange lust for blood, but not yours…"

Sorel was interrupted by a large projectile in the shape of Brandon flying towards his head. He used his shield, which Brandon impacted with a "clunk" and fell on his butt. "OW! SIR! Why didn't you catch me?!"

"Why didn't you aim yourself better?" Sorel casually replied.

"There, take your Brandon, and leave the Joe alone," Pete said to Sorel.

Sorel looked at Pete strangely. "I fancy something new…" Sorel turned to Brandon. "You! Get out of the way!"

"Ow!" Brandon whined at being telekinetically pushed a foot out of Sorel's way.

Sorel charged towards Pete, but Pete readied a stake from his pocket. When Sorel reached Pete, Pete lunged towards his heart with the stake, but Sorel had teleported out of the way and behind him.

Pete scowled. "Hey! When did you learn-…" Pete got cut off by the familiar feeling of vampire teeth sinking into his neck. "Aagh…" Pete murmured.

After a few more seconds, Sorel pulled away as Pete fell to the floor, clutching the new bite wounds on his neck.

Patrick, whose opponent had stopped attacking him, stared at Sorel, horrified. "I can't… _believe_ you just did that… so what's vampire blood like?"

"Like flat soda." Sorel made a face. "Well, I'm not doing that again…" Sorel looked over to Patrick and his opponent. He got angry as he saw that Patrick wasn't being attacked. "You there! Girl! Why aren't you attacking? Kill him!"

The girl glanced from Patrick to Sorel. "But… he…"

"Do as I say," Sorel ordered. "I'm your leader."

"But-"

"DO AS I SAY or face the consequences."

Andrew's fight suddenly came to a halt when his two opponents paused to see what the girl would do. She looked to the female lieutenant, who widened her eyes and nodded to Patrick, as if to say "Do it!"

Sorel scowled deeply and looked around, at the seemingly undamaged Patrick, to Brandon, the girl, and the slowly rising werewolf lieutenant, to the unconscious Pete and Joe, to a bunch of still unconscious henchmen, and finally Andrew and his opponents, who both had their share of small injuries. Sorel scowled in a different way, baring his fangs. "This is pathetic. My only lieutenants who seemed to have done their fair share are you two with the swords."

The woman lieutenant, though she looked tired, straightened up and smiled. "Thank you, sir!"

Sorel looked to the teenage vampire. "And you… you'll regret disobeying me and becoming a little… good guy. Barons, let's move!" Sorel's lieutenants each grabbed their share of henchmen to drag and walked out the door. When they had all left, the roar of motorcycle engines started then was eventually just an echo in the distance.

"Huh?" Andrew looked around, and to Joe and Pete. "Whoa! What happened to them?"  
"Ah… Pete's probably suffering from slight blood loss… I'm not quite sure with Joe… I think he just got his head beaten in… and… you know, I don't know, my head hurts."

Andrew crossed his arms. "I never got to say my plan for driving Sorel away…"

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**Hey, I wrote that all by myself! Maybe I don't suck at action as much as I thought I did... yay.**

**I can't wait for Infinity On High, how about you?**

**Oh, and don't worry, Joe probably isn't hurt. I mean, not _that_ bad...**


	6. Round 3: Special Guest Dark Priest!

**Disclaimer: I don't own the video or the band. I want the blue one...**

**(-cheesy seventies-eighties sitcom music-) It's the Daaark Priest! Daaark Priest! Never know what he's gonna do next! Daaark Priest! Daaark Priest!**

**The Dark Priest: "Giggitygiggitygiggitygiggity let's drink blood!"**

**Oh my god... special: preview for the next chapter for anyone who can tell me where I just got that craziness from just then.**

**Don't worry if you don't get it, I'll be offering special contests like this for previews in the future.**

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"My neck huuurrrtsss…" Pete whined. He lay on the couch, with his hand over his forehead and eyes. 

"You won't help it by whining!" Patrick said.

Pete made a face. Then he sighed. "How's Joe?"

Patrick sighed too. "Uh… not so good. I think Sorel really hurt him…"

"Idiot for going in alone…"

Patrick said nothing in response.

"I'll kill that fucking vampire, though. He is so going down." He sat up. "I need you to-"

"I… want to tell you something…" Patrick interrupted him, sounding uneasy.

"Yesss?"

"When I went into town… I met up with… the priest."

"Are you joking?!" Pete jumped off the couch. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"With… the ambush and all that was happening I forgot. Sorry…"

"Sorry? Aagh! What did he say?"

Patrick looked at the ground and twiddled his fingers. "He just said… he wants to talk to you."

"Wants to…? What? Ugh, what is…?" Pete looked around the room, as if searching for some sort of answer to some unspecified question that lurked in the nooks and crannies of the room. "Oh, uh, Patrick… something else about my fight with Brandon…"

"What?" Patrick looked up. He seemed tired. "After this, I'm going to sleep."

"Yeah, about that… I kinda broke your bed."

"Wait, what do you mean, _you broke my bed_?!"

Pete looked guilty and he talked fast. "I don't know, we were fighting, then somehow ended up in the hallway and then somehow ended up in your room and…"

"Aw, Brandon was in my room?! Aw, that's just… aw!" Patrick grabbed his head.

"So now what?"

"So now I'm going to go take the blankets off my bed and sleep on the floor, or maybe on what's left of my mattress. Dammit, that was a four poster bed… we haven't had furniture like that since Dirty would go and get us-"

"I'M GOING… to stop you right there. Go to bed. Now I can tell you're tired." Pete stomped into the kitchen area. "Oh joy, he destroyed the fridge." Pete was aware that he was talking to himself. Patrick had left him alone in the room. Joe and Andrew were I the back somewhere. Pete was alone. But only in one manner of speaking.

"Have you been taking what I gave you?" An emotionless voice came from the entranceway.

"No one invited you," Pete growled.

"The last I saw you, you had suffered a loss. Please accept my condolences." The tall man bowed his head, making his already turned-low hat tip even farther down. When he talked, his vampiric fangs showed.

Pete sneered.

"I need to talk to you. You obviously already know of Sorel's presence."

"What gave you that idea?"

"I will be meeting up with the police chief tonight." The dark priest's eyes were cold under his hat. "It seems many have joined forces with Sorel, for they have easily moved on after The Baron's passing."

Pete looked at him with cold eyes. "If you were anybody else, I'd tell you to be careful. I'd tell you that the police chief was a vampire. I'd let you know that he was in cahoots with The Baron the entire time…" Pete's eyes narrowed. "_If_ you were anybody else, that is, because you seemed to know about it quite well, didn't you?"

The Dark Priest did not seem affected by the harshly cold tone. "Yes. And if you were anybody else, I would've let _you_ know," The unholy priest took out a small glass bottle with a clear liquid inside and put it on an end table, next to a small, orange lamp. "This all might have been easier for you if you had just joined forces with The Baron like he originally desired, you realize?" The fallen priest paused. "Sorel is not after your partnership, you know. He is simply here for the bloodshed and pain."

"I know that!" Pete snapped.

"An adolescent girl of Sorel's team was brutally murdered by her leader," The Dark Priest hadn't moved an inch from his position since he put down the bottle. "I predict it was some manner of punishment. If Sorel hasn't any trouble killing a teenage girl of his own side, he won't think twice about torturing you and your friends to death."

Just when Pete was about to order him out, the mysterious man turned and headed out the entrance. "A couple of words before I leave: Remember how Sorel loves to drag things out. He seems to enjoy seeing people in pain." The priest smiled widely, and his teeth flashed in the moonlight. "Also, you may not want to leave this door open in the middle of the night anymore." The priest laughed deeply and loudly, his laugh filled with malevolence. Pete briefly considered being creeped out, but he had heard worse laughs before. The priest left him alone in the kitchen.

"Whoooaaa…. What was that? Have you been doing late-night drinking again?" Andrew came in, looking very tired. "Wait… do you have beer? Give me some!"

"I DON'T HAVE BEER!" Pete shouted.

"Then I guess you just laugh weird when you're sober."

"Haven't you heard me laugh enough to be able to tell by now anyway how I laugh when I'm sober?"

An awkward silence filled the room. Andrew broke it with a laugh. "No! I haven't, actually! But whatever, I'm going to bed. Let's get beer tomorrow morning."

"My pleasure," Pete opened up his coffin and climbed inside unenthusiastically.

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_Sorel and his lieutenants were in a tension-filled room with an "Employees Only" sign on the door, in the middle of an empty parking garage. This was Sorel's choice of location. It would give a spot for every member of his band and their motorcycle a place to rest. But Sorel didn't really need to rest, so he didn't plan to be there more than an hour._

_The two officers with the rapiers stood in a corner of the room, whispering rapidly back and forth. The white-blond male lieutenant leaned against the door. Brandon was using a dead employee as a chair._

_Sorel and the teenage girl officer, however, were standing facing each other. Her face was filled with fear and his with anger._

_"Now, I need you to tell me something," Sorel said to her. "What did you do in this evening at the little warehouse?"_

_"I attacked the gadget boy," The girl responded, looking to the side._

_"Was he winning?"_

_"No," The vampiric teen looked at her feet. She felt like she was being lectured by a crabby schoolteacher (but even more intimidating)._

_"Ah. Good. But then what happened when you picked at a sore spot a little too hard?" Sorel adjusted a pocket on the front of his black leather jacket._

_"He… attacked me and I… kind of…"_

_"Didn't fight back?" Brandon rolled his eyes. The girl was afraid of what Sorel would do to her, but she was not afraid to make a mean face at Brandon (if looks could kill, even the vampire Brandon would be out for at least twenty-four hours)._

_"Brandon, please shut up for once," Sorel snapped. "If you must do something, go outside and practice teleporting. Your show earlier of teleporting out of the warehouse today and trying to get on your chopper, but landing in the nearest tree instead did not entertain me."_

_Brandon crossed his arms, pouted and looked away._

_"But…" Sorel looked back at the girl. "What he said was right. A simple apology and a little sacrifice from Hat-Boy and you let your hormones get the better of you! Pitiful." Sorel shook his head. "Let's hope other adolescent vampires aren't all like you."_

_"It wasn't hormones!" The girl defended herself. "He sacrificed himself. I mean, he doesn't even know my name, and-"_

_"I'M GOING… to stop you right there." Sorel raised his hand and kept it in the air. "This won't go unpunished. Feel free to defend yourself."_

_The girl gasped and stepped back. She reached into her pocket, her hand shaking, and pulled out a few hand needles. The blue-haired girl tossed them at Sorel, who dodged easily and they stuck into the wall. Sorel laughed. "My god, you're going to really have to do a hell of a lot better than that!"_

_The teen took out more handfuls of needles and tossed them fitfully, but still maintaining her excellent aim. Though the shots were well-aimed, the girl was too nervous to think about strategy and was giving simple shots that Sorel could dodge or control telepathically without missing a beat._

_Hand knives, needles, three small silver daggers, a random, sharp hunk of metal, shuriken, small yet heavy metal balls, sharp metal discs, and an engraved glass knife were all projectiles aimed at Sorel by the vampiric teen. Yet they were all deemed futile against the powerful telepath._

_"A glass knife!" Brandon commented. "Now that's just fancy!"_

_"How many times must I teach this? Weapons **suck** against a telekinetic!" Sorel took all the dodged projectiles out of the wall with his mental powers and turned them around, so their points aimed at the girl._

_The girl gasped again. She glanced desperately to the other female lieutenant for assistance, who looked away. The teen looked over to the white blond lieutenant as well, who had already nervously looked down. The girl didn't bother looking at Brandon._

_"Here, take your weapons back." And with one pulse, Sorel tossed all the sharp projectiles back at the girl, making sure to get at least one silver dagger in the spot where it mattered. The girl had time for one shriek before collapsing on the linoleum ground. There, she disintegrated slowly in the room._

_"Can I have the glass knife?" Brandon asked eagerly. When Sorel nodded, Brandon enthusiastically jumped up to fetch his pickings._

_"Oh damn… I was looking forward to having another female lieutenant…" The blonde young woman stuck out her bottom lip._

_Brandon laughed. "We'll get you Pete!"_

_"I'm surrounded by fools sometimes…" Sorel murmured._

_"HEY, I didn't know it was trick rapier, for the last time! I had no way of knowing!" The blonde woman's male counterpart insisted._

_"Apparently, neither did Andrew," the woman added._

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Dark Priest walked down the street with a purpose. His head in its usual slightly downward angle, he paced down the familiar road just as he did many times before. The intimidating man passed by a boarded-up cupcake shop, with the colors on the formerly bright sign fading away. There was a clothes shop that had once held glamorous, name-brand clothes, also tightly boarded up. There was a real estate office, with big, blank holes where floor-to-ceiling windows were shattered. There was a small bookstore, completely ravaged, with books and magazines lying right outside the door. The magazines were of no value anyway, as they all were dated for at least a year and a half ago. A small amount of snow had collected on his dusty black fedora, which, as usual, combined with his downward-tilted head to hide his eyes from those around him. Although at the moment he was alone, he still did it, perhaps by force of habit.

Finally, the Dark Priest turned into his destination, a police station. Though the police station seemed to be poorly maintained, it was the only thing on the street that wasn't abandoned. The vampire walked through the entrance and into the chief's office, expecting to see his partner, the vampiric police chief. He did indeed see his partner, but there was something else about him that wasn't particularly pleasing. Perhaps it was the stake that at that exact moment, was being driven though his heart.

"Yo," Sorel smiled malevolently at the unholy priest, dropping what was left of the disintegrating police chief.

The Dark Priest looked from the officer's hat that was all that remained of his (and formerly The Baron's) closest ally, to Sorel's minions (the 'werewolf' and two nameless Barons), to Sorel himself, who was leafing through the police chief's wallet, taking money, credit cards, a gift card, old family photos, a driver's license, and basically everything else. Finally he felt he had to say something. "Why did you do that?"

Sorel looked up. "Why did I kill him? The same reason, fool, that I'm about to have you killed. I want all The Baron's allies gone. I don't want this town to be standing when I leave, and I especially don't want anything that reminds me of The Baron left alive and whole. Gerard, get out the stopwatch." Gerard, the 'werewolf', took out the late weapon-toting girl's stopwatch. "Time how long it takes for him…" he gestured to one Baron, who looked up as the other blocked the door, "…To defeat our religious friend here." The biker in question stepped up to the priest, and cracked his knuckles. "Start the watch in three… two… one… now."

"As you wish." The Priest thrust his hand forward, punching through the Baron's leather jacket, skin, and ribcage, into his lung. He then twisted his hand, and a concealed stake from his long black jacket sleeve popped forward, easily piercing the henchman's heart, since his ribcage had already been conveniently moved out of the way. The biker gasped and disintegrated.

Gerard stopped his watch. "0.7 seconds…" he looked up dramatically. "…for him to slay one of ours."

Sorel clapped his hands, evidently a bit surprised. "William never told me you could fight."

"You want I should take care of him?" Gerard asked, his eager grin exposing his pearly white daggers.

"No, I'll handle this. And don't bother timing me. Just keep him from running."

"Okay, the windows are boarded up, so I'll just help whatsisface guard the door." He walked over to the door.

"Shall we?" Sorel procured his sword, which had apparently been on his back.

"If that's what would make you happy," the Dark Priest replied, drawing… a steel cross.

"You know, you really PISS ME OFF!" Sorel swung his sword downward, ready to split his foe in two. Suddenly, the dark blade was stopped cold… by two small arms of the steel cross the Dark Priest was holding. Sorel yelled angrily and slashed horizontally, first one way, then the other. The Dark Priest parried both attacks with his small cross, and responded with a lightning-fast punch, causing Sorel to stumble back. "Do you even _have_ any powers?"

The Dark Priest straightened. "Powers are only for hiding your weakness. I prefer to have no weakness."

Sorel snarled. "You really enjoy pushing my buttons, don't you!" He teleported behind the fallen Priest, and stabbed forward. The Priest sidestepped the attack, and kicked Sorel's sword hand hard, sending the sword flying across the room, where it embedded itself in a map of the town. Sorel responded by slamming the unholy priest's cross hand with his free hand, knocking the cross away and into Gerard's waiting hands. The Dark Priest punched Sorel several times, lightning fast, and finished with a kick, knocking Sorel back into the chief's desk. Sorel flipped over it, and telekinetically launched it forward. The Dark Priest lifted his foot up, and brought his heel down on the desk, snapping it in half. Both halves kept going and rushed by him and into the far wall.

"Like I said," the priest muttered, "I have no weaknesses."

"STOP BEING SO FUCKING CALM!" Sorel thrust out his arms, and a shotgun floated out from one of the drawers of the shattered desk, and fired at the Dark Priest. The priest flipped without warning away from the shot, and Sorel, had he not teleported, would have shot himself full of holes. Sorel's teleportation ended where the unholy priest was rolling to, and Sorel brought his skull down on the Dark Priest's as he got up. The fallen Priest stumbled back with a groan, and held onto his fedora so it wouldn't fall off. He then kicked the advancing Sorel, and jumped into the air, kicking again with his other foot. Sorel waved his hand, and launched the Dark Priest across the room. He then began shooting randomly with the shotgun floating near his head, as he composed himself and caught his breath. "Not so hot with a 12-Guage aimed at your head, are you?"

"At least I'm not a wimp who needs a floating gun to fight for him while he takes a breather." The Priest rolled under a blast, and grabbed the shotgun, twisting it so it couldn't fire. He then jumped forward with a flying karate kick. Sorel blocked it, and twisted the Priest's foot so he hit the ground hard. The Dark Priest rolled away from Sorel's subsequent stomp, and flipped up, kicking Sorel in the jaw as he rose. Sorel hit the wall, and teleported away from another blow. The Priest anticipated where Sorel would be, however, and punched hard in that direction. Sorel caught the Priest's hand by the wrist. "It's over, Reverend. You really can't beat me."

"Only time will tell." The Dark Priest twisted his hand, and a stake popped from its hiding place in his sleeve, cutting Sorel's hand through his own jacket. The unholy priest unveiled another stake from his other arm, and thrust toward Sorel's chest.

* * *

**BLATANT BAND MEMBER PLACEMENT! UWAH!**

**Okay now people, real hard one: he has new white blond hair, is from a currently popular band, his name is Gerard, and (here's a hint) he's a lead singer! (sarcasm ON) _Oh my god, you'll never guess it!_ (sarcasm OFF)**


	7. He's Better

**Disclaimer: I do not own the video or the characters these people are based off of. (-insert meaningless non-sequiter here-)**

**The next chapter (Chapter eight) will be, in its own weird way, a filler chapter. But trust me, you won't want to miss it. It's really long, it actually does have some story development, and has a new character!**

**The Insult Fight section of this chapter wasn't really necessary. But I couldn't resist.**

**One more important thing: For something that I'm sure will make some of you very happy, see the bottom author's note when you're done reading.**

* * *

"Uhhh…" Pete groaned as he awakened inside his coffin. It was new, and he had just began to decorate the inside with pictures and whatever else he wanted. Pete reached up to unlatch the coffin door, but something prevented him. 

"Huh… what the…?" Pete tried to kick the coffin. It didn't budge, and his hands felt… _stuck_. Pete lay down for a minute, then sat up suddenly and quickly. His head's impact broke the latch and the door swung open. "Whaaa!" Pete jumped up and looked down at his hands: they were both stuck to the pillow. Pete put his hands/pillow on the ground and planted one foot between his hands, then pulled his hands up. His hands came off, ripping a bit off the pillowcase. Two large, black, hand-shaped burns were on the pillow, and it smelled a little bit like it had burnt.

Pete's mouth dropped open in surprise. "What…? How the _hell_…?!"

Pete, still surprised, glanced over at the counter in the kitchen, to see if anyone had seen. Only Joe was at the counter, and his back was turned to Pete, his head down.

"What's your problem?" Pete asked him.

Joe turned around slowly. He scowled at Pete. Joe had a black eye, a bandage over his bruised nose, a bad cut on his cheek, and a handful of bandages around his forehead. Joe shot daggers at Pete with his eyes. "SHUT…" (It wasn't until Joe opened his mouth was it revealed that one of his top front teeth was badly chipped and a bottom front tooth was just missing) "…UP."

Pete stared back at him. Under any other circumstance, Pete would've teased Joe about his face resembling an overripe tomato, but as it was, Joe's eyes were scaring Pete. Pete continued his blank stare at Joe. "Well, alrighty then."

After about another minute of staring, Pete couldn't resist. "So, get a visit from the Tooth Fairy last night?" Pete immediately cracked up after saying.

At first, Joe's scowl at Pete broke records as far as face muscles were concerned, but then Joe put his arms down on the counter and his head followed. Joe released what sounded like a cross between a groan and a whine. "AAH, I look like a hockey player!"

"Who got REEAALLYY drunk!" Pete added.

When Pete wouldn't stop laughing, Joe decided to fire back. "Well, at least I don't have some lost vertebrae and organs sitting in one of the houses of The Baron!"

Pete's mouth dropped open in surprise. "Well, I don't have an afro!"

"WELL, who's taller?! Huh?" Joe spread his arms out. "OH YEAH, who's the taller one?"

Andrew had come into the room now. "OH! What now, Pete?! _What now_?"

"Shut up over there, Vegan Boy!" Pete shouted.

Patrick called out now. "Do I have to come over there and _learn you both a lesson_?" But Patrick knew very well he couldn't 'learn either of them a lesson'.

Joe glanced over at the newly entered Patrick. "You can't teach any of us any lessons! You're the shortest of all of us!"

"I'm comfortably somewhere in between," Andrew said. Then a big smile made its way across Andrew's face. "Okay! Insult fight!" He turned to Pete. "Yo' momma SO ugly that when she went to enter for an ugly contest, they told her, 'Sorry! No professionals'!"

Pete's smiled suddenly disappeared into an expressionless stare. "You do realize I couldn't give half a crap would you said about my mom of all people?"

A familiar awkward silence filled the room. Joe turned to Pete. "Nice one, Emo Head. You totally ruined the fun, carefree mood we were going for just now."

"Because we're not fun and carefree." After his quick response, Pete turned to Andrew. "Want to train with me?"

"Ah, sure, but you know I'm not so good with hand-to-hand combat like you or Joe…"

"Keep your rapier. I haven't tried to fight you with your rapier in a long time."

"… 'Kay."

* * *

Sorel leapt back from the stake, pushing the Dark Priest telekinetically away as he did so. Even so, the stake pierced his jacket, just nicking the skin underneath. "Two hidden stakes, eh? Nice, but two isn't NEARLY enough!" He yanked open both jacket pockets, and drew three stakes from each. The half-dozen wooden spikes orbited around the Priest, who grimaced in anticipation. The stakes all suddenly flew at him, and lighting quick dodging barely saved him, tearing large gashes in his own, not leather jacket. He quickly kicked out, splintering several stakes, and grabbed another. One stake survived and came at him again, but he parried it with the one he caught, destroying both. He then dashed at his foe again. This time, he skidded forward in a low, sliding kick. Sorel jumped away and kicked out at the Priest, but he caught Sorel's foot, anticipating the attack. He then threw Sorel into the nearest smashed chunk of desk. Sorel teleported away from the desk, landing in a standing position across the room, only to find the Dark Priest had anticipated his new location again and thrust forward with both stakes. Sorel caught his priestly opponent's wrists, and grinned. His sword pulled itself from the town map and spun toward the unholy priest. The priest blinked and responded by flipping up over Sorel, forcing the Dandy-turned-biker to let go. Sorel grabbed the sword, spun in place, and stabbed forward. The Dark Priest ducked quickly, avoiding an agonizing case of body impalement, but his fedora was skewered, revealing his balding head. Sorel then kicked out, his biker boot solidly connecting with the Priest's face. The Priest stumbled back, and suddenly had to dodge several more advancing sword strikes. "Finally," Sorel laughed, "I hit you!" He backed the Priest up against a wall, and stabbed forward again. The Dark Priest ran up the wall, and jumped off. As he did, he spun and delivered an extremely hard kick to the side of Sorel's head, snapping his neck. Sorel collapsed, his body going limp and his limbs laying at odd angles. 

"I win," the Dark Priest said simply. "The Baron, you are not."

"Correct," Sorel snarled. "I'm better!" His sword continued to lash out at the Priest, and it was all he could do to avoid the sinister blade. It began spinning menacingly, and the unholy priest was forced to parry with one of his concealed stakes, destroying it. Sorel's neck audibly snapped back into place, and he stumbled to his feet, flexing his fingers. He twisted his neck back and forth, up and down, and around in a circle, creating several more snaps, crackles, and pops. "Everything seems to be in order." He teleported behind the Dark Priest, and lashed out with a swinging fist. The Priest was too busy dodging the sword to avoid its master, and the blow connected solidly with his head, propelling him across the room into the map, which fell off the wall. Sorel teleported there again and stomped down. He smiled at the sickening sound of the bone in the Priest's forearm shattering, but frowned when the Priest didn't cry out afterwards. Instead, he kicked Sorel away in a spinning motion and leapt to his feet. "Damnation!" He roundhouse-kicked the window, clearing away the thick boards obstructing it, and dove through. Gerard and Sorel each drew another stake and tossed it after the Dark Priest. Gerard's missed, but Sorel's wooden weapon-of-choice connected with his target's calf.

"Nine hells!" Gerard turned to the anonymous Baron. "Organize the others and search the area! He can't have gone far!"

"Gerard," Sorel said calmly, "Do you know how hard it is to find a master-rank vampire, wounded or otherwise, on a cloudy night? It would be a waste of effort. At the least, he won't be bothering us for a while. Come." He grinned. "We're done here, and we have some more enjoyable business to take care of."

* * *

Both Andrew and Pete jumped away from each other, pausing for only a few seconds to catch their breath, and then resuming their training. Pete was having trouble after only a short amount of time, as he was running out of ways to block Andrew's rapier without hurting himself in the process. To avoid getting sliced up, Pete had only managed to land a couple of hits on Andrew. Pete realized that most often when he fought Andrew, their training session consisted of mostly blocks, dodges, and maneuvers. When Pete and Joe trained together, their battles were filled with hits and punches, using brute strength more than clever movements, and both of them eventually walking out of the empty, garage-like training room battered and covered in bruises. 

Pete panted as he avoided a quick slice from the rapier right above his head, then stumbled to the side away from its coming down on his skull.

Pete saw an opening and tried to move in to land a blow to Andrew's ribs, but Andrew quickly whipped his rapier to the side to rip his opponent. Pete wasn't ready enough to dodge or block with his shins, so Pete went with a reflex and grabbed the rapier. He instantly regretted it as he could feel almost immediately the blood coming out of his new wound and pain ran through his hand.

Pete reeled back from the rapier as Andrew high-kicked Pete in the jaw. The vampire went sliding back a few feet. He propped himself up on his elbows and wiped his bloody mouth. "Damn! Not again!" Pete sighed and sat up, looking at Andrew hopefully. "Best eleven out of twenty-one?"

"What?! No way! I beat you, fair and square!" Andrew said proudly. "Plus, I'm also beat in the other sense of the word meaning 'tired as hell'." Andrew yawned and walked over to his digital watch, which he had thrown to the side with his shirt. As he tugged the T-shirt over his head, he glanced at the watch. "It's dinnertime. Let's go scavenge for food." In their 'house', 'breakfast' meant eating in the time period somewhere between three A.M. and noon. 'Dinner' was the period between five P.M. and one A.M. 'Lunch' was time between in the afternoon.

"There is nothing here to eat," Pete mentioned. "The only thing that survived the 'Sorel Rampage' was your vegan tofu crap."

"It's not crap! It's better for the environment! And nicer to animals and, and… stuff!"

* * *

**IMPORTANT AUTHOR'S NOTE: CONTEST!**

**Guess what? Because the demand for My Chemical Romance characters are off the charts, I'm going to let you vote for another My Chemical Romance character you want in the series to have a reoccuring role with Gerard (when I get a chance to introduce them, I'll put the winner in).**

**"Yellowfur, how do I do it?" Simple! All you have to do is submit a review with your first and second choice other MCR guy.**

**Rules: First, No more than two choices (don't say the whole rest of the band). Second, no other band suggestions. I'm talking My Chemical Romance right now. Third, abosolutely NO complaining about it if your guy or even second choice guy didn't make the cut. If you can't be responsible enough to be a good sport, don't vote.**

**"Yellowfur, Yellowfur! Why are you picking only one guy? Aren't they all good enough?" YES. They're all good enough! But, truth be told, it would get crowded with an extra four repeating characters running around. It's too much for Sorel, too much for Pete, Patrick, Joe, and Andy, and too much for me! (Remember, somebody's putting the words you read out in front of you, people!)**

**For your information, yes, I will be killing off the rest in their appearance chapter. Not that anybody in MCR is guaranteed to live thru this fic, but the winner will at least last longer. And use a different weapon. The others... they'll go to join the Black Parade!**


	8. Fun and Food in a Filler!

**Yellowfur: As a special treat, today Andrew will be doing my disclaimer and author's notes! **

**Andy: Uh... hi! Yellowfur does not own us or our video, or any food products she uses in this chapter. Or any other band members. She doesn't own the lyrics of "Friend of the Devil", either. That is courtesy of the Grateful Dead. Can I go now?**

**Y: Not until you do the rest of it.**

**Andy: (-sigh-) If you noticed the rest of MCR aren't here yet, it's because they haven't gotten the chance to be inserted into the storyline yet. Yellowfur will put them in when she's good and ready, and when they are, too. NOW can I go? **

**Y: No, not yet. (-yanks on chains wrapped around Andrew-) Where are the others?**

**Andy: I'll never give them away!**

**Y: I have ways of making you talk. (-snaps one drumstick on knee-)**

**Andy: AGH! Stoooop! Those are lucky! In the closet! They're in the closet! (-pants-)**

**Y: (-Mr. Burns style-) Exxxxxcellent. **

* * *

"So, what was your big plan for driving away the Barons?" Pete asked Andrew. 

"Huh, what?" Andrew took out a bowl of Instant Ramen.

"Before they attacked us, you were talking about some sort of-"

"Oh yeah!" Andrew lit up. "I remember now! It was way cool." He took out the milk.

"And it was…?" Pete raised one eyebrow.

"We should find out where they are, and when they gather together in an open space somewhere, or something, we attack them from inside the car. Patrick can use his guns and stuff."

Pete stared at him. "That's… a really good idea, actually. Could use some tweaking, but I think…" Pete flinched. "…I… think… uh… why are you pouring milk over Ramen noodles?!"

"I heard about it somewhere." Andrew took a spoonful. "Ew, this is nasty! It's all salty!" He tossed it aside.

"That, and our milk is expired." Pete pointed out.

"EW!" Andrew tossed the bowl in the garbage.

"Nice job, Andrew. You just single-handedly depleted our food supply…" Pete checked the fridge, the cabinets, and the pantry. "And… yup, it's all gone. We officially have absolutely no food."

"Well, it's not like we were going to survive on one bowl of ramen noodles and expired milk anyway." Andrew made a face at Pete.

"Hey Patrick!" Pete called out. "Andrew and I are going out for food! Be back later!"

"What?" Patrick came into the kitchen. "Well, then Joe and I are going with you. No way should you two be going out in the middle of the night alone, tired from training. Bad idea."

"Well fine, if you're going to be all paranoid about it."

"What are we doing?" Joe joined the three.

"We're going food-shopping," Andrew replied.

"Where?" Joe asked.

"Uh… we haven't gotten that far yet…" Pete said. He looked over to Patrick. "What food shops aren't abandoned yet?"

"Uh…" Patrick thought for a minute. "Well, what's closed? That'll help me figure out what's open. Name a shop."

"Too many closed shops to name." Pete replied.

"Fine. Then what's open?"

"The Speedo Mart?" Joe suggested.

"Yeah, that's a good idea if we want to get our brains blown out by a psychopathic twenty year old woman." Pete said.

"The 'Food-N-Stuff Palace'?" Joe suggested.

"Give me a break, that was abandoned about a year ago." Andrew mentioned.

"Barbecue Purgatory?" Joe suggested again.

"That place gives us gas," Pete reminded him.

"Gong Yi Tempai Palace Chinese Eatery?" Joe spread his arms out, frustrated from running out of ideas.

"That place is run by a family of Chinese vampires now, remember?" Pete commented. "With the creepy little girl who has extra big fangs and a fondness for Patrick?"

Patrick shuddered. "Ewwww, yeah. I'm not going there. Hmm… they _would_ serve us, though." Silence filled the room as they all weighed the options. "How about we go there as a last resort?" Patrick asked.

"Okay, but only if we can't think of anything better!" Andrew said quickly.

"Mr. Meaty's?" Pete put forth.

"That was the place with Fred/Harold/Rent-A-Clerk, remember?" Patrick raised one eyebrow.

"Ahhh, the memories…" Pete said nostalgically.

"Oh! The cupcake shop!" Andrew shouted excitedly, and jumped up.

"YEAH! The cupcake shop!" Joe agreed.

Even Pete smiled enthusiastically. He turned to Patrick. "Cupcakes?"

"Pleeeeaaaassse?" All three boys begged in unison and made puppy dog eyes (and one set of vampiric puppy dog eyes) at Patrick.

Patrick sighed slowly. "Sorry, guys… I thought you knew, but I guess you didn't… the owners left town, too. It's closed and boarded up."

"NO!" Joe yelled. Andrew's mouth dropped. Pete looked off into the distance.

"But they gave me cupcakes for free for being a vampire and 'super-duper cute' at the same time…" Pete mumbled with great sadness weighing him down.

"Yeah, those girls were nice. But let's face the facts. More than three quarters of the townsfolk are gone or vampires. It's not even really a town anymore; no mayor, no city hall, no legitimate police, few children or teenagers, one priest, and **he's** a vampire. I mean, come on guys… the _hospital_ is overrun with vampires." Patrick paused to let his words sink in. "If one of us were to get really hurt, we wouldn't-"

Pete interrupted him. "If one of you guys got really hurt, **I'd** take you to another town, all by myself if I had to, at the drop of a hat."

"What about if you got really injured?" Joe said. "You'd eventually heal from the likes of infections and further injuries and sickness and stuff, but you wouldn't need the suffering."

"Yeah, right. Only about one of ten hospitals take in vampires anyway." Pete snapped.

"Can we focus on this second, for just a little while? You know instead of _what ifs_?" Andrew interrupted the discussion loudly. "Back to food, you know, something our bodies need to FUNCTION?" Andrew crossed his arms. "How about Food-O-Mart Twenty-Four?"

"Sounds good. They're the only place I know isn't abandoned." Patrick responded.

"Yeah, okay," Pete answered unenthusiastically.

"WHATEVER, I'm hungry!" Joe yelled/whined.

"Can you eat missing one and a half front teeth?" Pete teased him, smiling.

"Shut up, _Canis lupus!_"

"NOT a werewolf!"

"Please don't mention werewolves," Joe requested.

* * *

The four walked into the 'Food-O-Mart 24'. It was in the best shape of any building in town; it was far from abandoned. Like any other innocent supermarket, scores of big lights were always on and it was packed to the brim with food. 

"Hmm… let's split up so we can all go get food faster." Patrick said. "I'll go to produce,"

"Hey!" A voice called out. A blond teenage girl was at one of the cash registers (she was standing in the very middle one, even though she was the only cashier in the whole store). "Do you need help? Like, finding something, y' know?" When she spoke it was visible that she had vampire teeth.

"Uh, I'll be fine," Patrick replied. "Thanks, though."

Pete ignored her. "I'm going to canned food,"

"I'll go to dairy since I don't trust Andrew to get anything but soymilk there," Joe stated.

Andrew stuck his tongue out. "Well, fine then! I'll go…" He looked around. "To the vending machines!"

The girl watched as they all went off in separate directions. She left her position at the register and followed Patrick (there probably weren't more than a few other people in the store anyway). "Hey, wait! I'll help you! I _know_ produce!"

"Oh, joy…" Patrick mumbled.

She caught up with him. "Your friend is a vampire."

"Yes, he is,"

"Does he ever chew bubblegum? Because whenever I do, and try to blow a bubble, it always pops because of my teeth. Is that weird or what?"

Patrick ignored her, hoping she'd get the hint.

"Hey, dude. I have a question."

"Yeeeees?" Patrick grimaced, trying to pick out tomatoes.

"If there is no God, who pops up the next tissue in the box?" She cocked her head to one side. "And if you play a blank tape at full volume, does the mime next door go crazy?"

Patrick paused in thought at the last question. "Uh… wow, I don't know…"

"Can I help you pick out produce? Pleeeeaaaassse?" She whined.

"Fine, fine! Just… pick out some green vegetables or something."

"Yay!" The girl grabbed the first thing she could see off the shelf. "Asparagus is good for the body and soul,"

"Oh, jeez…" Patrick murmured.

* * *

Pete wasn't really picking foods. He was just grabbing random cans and putting them in the basket. Currently, he had one 'Cream of Eel', one 'Pumpkin Pie Helper', three cans of 'Canned Bread', two cans of 'Super Spam', and one can of tomato paste. But finally something caught his attention. "Oh, ravioli!" 

Pete reached for the can; when he took it off, he met with another face behind the shelf. Brandon was in the next aisle over.

Brandon smiled innocently. "Hey, Pete! I'm just cruising around in the next aisle over. I'm not following you or anything." Brandon reached down and held up four five ounce bottles of Hershey's chocolate syrup and one twenty ounce bottle of U-Bet chocolate syrup. "Which is the better deal?"

Pete stared. He calmly and slowly reached up and put the can back on the shelf. After that, he stood still for about three seconds before having a seizure/heart-attack/'freak-out'/all of the above on the floor, writhing around and retching with the occasional scream.

Brandon laughed hysterically at the sound of Pete's 'spazzing out'. After he caught his breath, he teleported away (with of course, the U-Bet chocolate syrup).

After another minute, Pete got up and fixed his hair. "I should get some Nutella chocolate spread!"

* * *

Sorel pressed the button, and a can of beer dropped from the vending machine marked, "Yes, This is a Vending Machine for Beer'. He opened it and walked past three soda machines and a disposable camera machine, to the candy machines. "Everlasting Gobstoppers? This _must be_ my lucky day!" He dropped in another single, and grabbed two packs of Everlasting Gobstoppers. He pocketed them and continued drinking beer as he walked past the myriad snack machines, the tea, coffee, and cocoa machine, the Pokemon card machine, porn video machine, and office supplies vending machine. "Ooooh, this one sells… girl's panties? Excellent!" He reached into his wallet and gasped. "I'm out of singles? No!" He snarled. "Vending machine, you will bow to me!" He waved his arms, tearing the vending machine open telekinetically, and took some panties, leaving his empty beer can inside.

* * *

Andrew walked up to the first soda machine. "Wow… looks like one of these machines was vandalized. BADLY." Andrew shrugged and purchased a Dr. Jolt. He was looking over his other choices in machines when the blond rapier-wielding lieutenant walked up and looked at the office supplies vending machine. "Hey, Andrew," 

"Hey," He responded.

"Crazy weather, huh?" She put forth, pondering the prices of the mini staplers.

"Yeah, the snow is just coming and coming. Won't stop." Andrew replied.

Two machines down, her male partner was having trouble with the tea, coffee, and hot cocoa vending machine. "Styrofoam cups! Where are this thing's Styrofoam cups?!" He screamed as hot cocoa poured down his pants.

"Sorry about him," the blond girl said calmly. "He needs help putting on underwear."

"HEY! I was DRUNK that morning! And this thing's supposed to give me a Styrofoam cup! Cu-uu-uup!" He began pounding the machine vigorously with his skull.

A second of silence and then she said, "Real estate around here is insane, huh?"

"Yeah, insanely low!" Andrew responded. Then they both shared a good laugh.

"Looks like your property values of just been dropping and dropping. It must be a bitch for you to even get a realtor, let alone even _think_ about moving South." She continued.

"Yeah, let me tell you, vampires? They just drop the price like termites. It's insane. And if you're living with one? Well, you just can't even convince anyone to come take a tour of the house. Or warehouse or whatever you want to call it."

The girl took a step over to the disposable camera machine. "I think it's pretty obvious that I'll need the one with the night lens option."

"Well, it was nice talking to you, but I have to go make sure my friends don't kill each other." Andrew waved goodbye and smiled to the girl, who waved back. When he was halfway over to the dairy aisle, he froze in shock and spilled half his soda. "WHOA! Whaaa! I, uh, AHH!" Andrew whipped around. He looked at the machines and hid behind a garbage can. The girl wasn't at the machines. Andrew stood up, looked at his soda, and threw it away quickly, wiping his hands on his jeans.

* * *

Joe had two gallons of milk. "Well, that was easy. Dairy is so simple to shop for!" (Joe didn't notice that one of the milk gallons was two days away from expiring and another was leaking). "I better get to the meat before Andrew gets something…HORRIBLE!" 

As if on cue, Andrew called out to Joe. "WOW! Great deal on rice milk!" Andrew walked over to where Joe was standing. "Huh… he ran away… maybe he had to go to the bathroom."

Joe ran to the front of store. He paused to catch his breath and looked around. "I hear… music." He looked at the entrance. Gerard was sitting, as innocent-looking as ever, strumming "Friend of the Devil" on a guitar.

Joe walked over cautiously.

"_I set out running, but I take my time. A friend of the devil is a friend of mine. If I get home before daylight, I just might get some sleep tonight._" Gerard looked up at Joe and pointed to the tip jar (which held a generous sum of money). "How about a little something for the effort?"

Joe dropped the milk. "THAT'S _MY_ GUITAR! I wondered where it went! You _snatched_ it, you little klepto son-of-a-bitch!" Joe grabbed for the guitar.

"AGH! Get off! I have to make a living!" Gerard tugged back.

"YOU LIVE WITH YOUR GANG OF VAMPIRES! YOU DON'T NEED TO MAKE A LIVING!"

"Stooooop!" Gerard had a firm grip.

"GIVE IT!"

"_MAKE ME_!"

"'_KAY_!" Joe tugged harder.

"IT'S MINE NOW! I STOLE IT FAIR AND SQUARE!"

Joe planted one foot on Gerard's face and gave one more good yank, finally pulling it away from Gerard. He ran off back into the dairy aisle.

Gerard got up. "WELL, I GET YOUR MILK NOW! **HA**!" Gerard picked up the plastic cartons. "Ew, he's a really bad shopper."

Joe ran up the aisle and almost bumped straight into Andrew. "Yes! Andrew! Look what I found!" Joe strapped his guitar on and played a short cord triumphantly.

"Wow, what are they selling and passing off as dairy lately?" Andrew commented.

* * *

Sorel stood alone in Aisle Five with the blond girl. She stared at him. "What'll it be, mister?" She cocked her head to one side in confusion. Sorel put nothing on the conveyor belt, and he was already halfway through his beer, so she figured he got it from the vending machines 

"The candy aisle," Sorel replied calmly.

"What of it, mister?" She tried to blow a bubble with her blue gum (which immediately popped).

"I want it,"

"My gum?"

"THE AISLE."

"Ohhhhh." She cocked her head to the other side. "Will that be cash or charge?"

"I won't be paying," Sorel smiled.

"Okey-dokey." The girl shrugged and didn't look intimidated in the least. She seemed used to that kind of thing. "Will you need help carrying anything to your car?"

"I don't have a car. And I think I'll be fine." He started putting beer on the conveyor belt. "I will, however, be paying for this." He looked behind her, where a shelf of cigarettes and wooden stakes were displayed. "I also need a pack of cigarettes aaannnd… about five stakes should do it."

"Can I see some I.D.?"

"Excuse me?" Sorel scowled at her.

"You need I.D. to purchase cigarettes, mister. Beer I'll let you get away with. But cigarettes? I need to make sure you're an adult before you slowly kill your un-life," She stated.

"Do I _look_ under eighteen?"

"Doesn't matter, mister."

Instead of what you would expect from Sorel (telekinetically ripping the girl in half), Sorel grumbled and took out his wallet. "HERE! I.D.! Happy now?"

"This i-den-ti-fi-ca-tion-" (She stressed every syllable) "is invalid, mister. It's for Sir Paul McCartney."

"I get around," He replied. "Besides, you asked to see _some_ I.D., not _my_ I.D."

"Well, I need other I.D., like a driver's license." She snapped her gum.

Sorel took out his sword and shoved it in to the counter. "There's my driver's license. Any other questions?"

"Yeah! How do you drive?" She shook her head. "Well, you're all set." She handed him his cigarettes and stakes.

"Dammit, I need a lighter!" Sorel fished around in his pockets after opening the cigarette box.

"Use mine!" She enthusiastically whipped out her lighter, which had a picture of a volcano on it. When she turned it on, the top of the volcano turned red. "Isn't that sweet?!" She was very amused.

"Yeah, whatever, kid. Why do you have a lighter anyway?"

"To fight off _undesirables_, mister. I mean, after all the vampires came, my school made self-defense classes mandatory, like science or algebra. But it just wasn't enough you know? Obviously!" She showed him her teeth. "Do you think they look bigger than usual vampire teeth?"

"A little curved, maybe. Braces can fix that." Sorel replied. "Well… bye now. Oh, and don't call the police if a bunch of leather jacket-wearing 'undesirables' come in and steal candy. They're my minions."

"Minion? Is that like an onion? Can I be a minion, too? Because I _know_ onions! And I have a bunch of girlfriends who became vampires with me, like when we all went to get our ears pierced at the same time and-"

Sorel interrupted by raising his hand. "Stop your rambling! And yes, when my soldiers come in, see them for yourself and decide then." Sorel handed her a slip of paper. "That's my cell phone number."

"Oh! Like a business card! Fancy!" She exclaimed. "Hey, mister, isn't it funny that I asked you for I.D. because I'm only sixteen?"

Sorel ignored her and left. His lieutenants suddenly appeared and followed, each with a double-armful of candy, except for Brandon, who was carrying beer for fifty.

Patrick got in line next, with all the food the others had collected (they were picking out food from the vending machines). Patrick sighed, sounding tired. "Oy. What's _with_ people today?"

"What's with today, today?" She responded.

Patrick froze. "Uh… I don't know… you got me again."

She put all their food through as Patrick took out some twenties. "The total comes to seventy-four exactly. Can I bite your neck?"

Patrick dropped his wallet. "What?!"

"I haven't bit anyone in a whole day, and my friends and I are having this contest to see who can get the most bites in a week."

"NO! You can't bite me!" Patrick handed her the money quickly.

"Oh… well, can I bite your tomatoes?"

Patrick looked horrified. "Yeah… pick one… and keep it."

"Yayyy!" She cheered. "By the way, my name's Claire!"

"I'm Patrick…" Patrick sounded uneasy. "And… your uniform says 'Alicia'." _Damn, why can't food service staff wear their own uniforms in this town?!_

"Alicia's out flirting with the boys so she can get multiple bites at once. Her cleavage is bigger, so she's beating all of us. Cheater."

Andrew had a new soda. "Wow, Pat, you don't look so good. You look tired."

Patrick ignored him.

"We got you food from the vending machine!" Joe handed Patrick a blueberry Pop-Tart.

"Isn't that nice of them!" Claire said about Joe and Andrew. "You're almost as nice as that biker-type vampire from earlier was!"

"Wait, who?!" Pete asked, but Patrick had already dragged him out the door.

"Thank you for your service!" Claire called out after them. "Hee hee…" She laughed when she was alone. "He's so adorable! And he's so tired he didn't even notice I bit him anyways!" She blew a bubble. It popped. "Damn it, AGAIN!"

* * *

**I think I'll use Claire and her friends again later.**

**Next chapter: Very angsty. Two, count 'em TWO flashbacks (Oh, major flashback p0wnage). There is also a drunken Pete scene, which, I might add, was a lot of fun to write. So fun I almost forgot to include any angst in it. I only ended up including like, one sort of angsty line about Pete being with the Punks.**

**I finally got the CD... (-melts mind into it-). My fave tracks are The Carpal Tunnel of Love, Thriller, I'm Like a Lawyer the Way I'm Always Trying to Get You Off (Me + You) (Wow, that took a lot of energy to type), and Thnks fr th Mmrs (no vowels is interesting...). And I do also like This Ain't A Scene, It's an Arms Race. (okay, I love the titles, but my fingers are on fire here!)**

**Oops, long chapter and notes. 'Kay bye.**


	9. Thnks fr th Mmrs

**Disclaimer: I own little used within this fanfic. Sitting in a honeymoon.**

**---**

**Guess what? Yellowfur has another contest-like thing to tell you about it!**

**Why/How: I will be making a three-quel of this story (that's the plan so far). The deal with it is that many different groups of people will be wanting the life/death/sanity/all of the above of the vigilantes for some reason or another. One person will be a professional vampire slayer...**

**Who: The three-quel's vampire slayer!**

**What: As in the last story and at the end of this installment, I give you a cast of people who would play the characters of the story (examples: Pete Wentz is Pete, Gerard Way is vampire/werewolf lieutenant Gerard). What I don't have for the three-quel is someone to play the pro vamp slayer (shortened version of professional vampire slayer). And you, my loyal readers, have the job of finding me someone better! **

**(Unless you give me someone better, our current slayer is RYAN SEACREST! No, actually, it's Chris Daughtry for now, just to let you know. So please send in your suggestion.)**

**When: Anytime before this story ends. So it's a long time.**

**Who: Give me a review suggesting your person, or a PM if you wish.**

**Where: What? 'Where'? What do you mean 'where'? Huh?... the story? I guess. You're confusing me.**

**Misc.: No guarantees we will use your person, even if you are the only one who suggested something. And if we already have a role for your person, we'll let you know ("we" by the way is my co-writer avatarjk137 and I). No limit on suggestion numbers. **

**We Can't Use: Another MCR member that won't have the bigger role with Gerard in this story (they're joining the Black Parade, remember?), A 30 Seconds To Mars member (something in store for them), or Chuck Norris (that's just tacky).**

**---**

**This chapter is not nearly as light-hearted as the last. Beware.**

---

_Cruel laughter filled the mostly empty streets. The only people in it were four preteen boys and three laughing vampires._

_"Ha! 'Ey, Butch! Lookey 'ere!" A white-blond vampire in a ripped up, long-sleeve, gray T-shirt said to the biggest guy of the bunch. "This one's still got some fight left in 'im!" He stomped his foot on one of the boy's heads._

_"What is it, Whitey?" A large, fat vampire trudged over, wearing a torn, stained white tee and similarly torn and stained jeans. "We have to go, we're new, and if we're late, Hana will tear us to shreds and you know it."_

_"Ach, she's as new as we are! She's just lucky she got picked out of the four of us to be a frikkin' officer!" He sounded angry. "If they knew she wasn't much older 'an these brats they woulda sent her packin'!"_

_The third vampire was a Hispanic man clad in nothing but jeans adorned with chains of various sizes and metals. "This one here's got a rapier, ain't that cute?" He reached down towards one of the four kids. "Little twerps shouldn't play with sharp stuff. So gimme that!" He tried to snatch the rapier, but the boy held on._

_"…no! Let… go!" the boy insisted, holding onto his weapon's handle tightly, even though he was bleeding profusely from the nose and mouth._

_"ANDREW!" The boy under 'Whitey's' foot struggled. "Just… let it… go! For fuck's sake!"_

"_Aye, little boy's got a foul mouth!" Whitey stomped the boy under his foot a few times. Then he turned to Butch and the Hispanic vampire. "Can we kill 'em now? Puh-lease? C'mon Carlos, you know YOU haven't killed anyone in weeks."_

"_Hell no! Let's get out of here!" Butch responded. "The officers of the Punks will freakin' flay our skin from our flesh if we don't make it back in time with this ammunition." Butch held up a few boxes, containing only bullets. "Even though they don't really use the guns much anyway…"_

"_Besides, we have to leave something for the Skinheads to eat." Carlos added, looking at his prize, a fairly good rapier. "I should learn how to use this now that I've got one! What is it anyway, a machete?"_

"_That's a rapier," Butch replied, following the now angry white-blond Brit._

"_Whatever," He responded halfheartedly, following the other two as he tossed the rapier about in his hands._

_About a minute after the volatile group left, a third boy spoke. "Am I the only one bleeding?"_

"_NO," Andrew replied._

_Each boy gathered himself up slowly and eventually found the strength to stand. The tallest boy walked over to the shortest one. "This was YOUR idea to go after the vampires already, Pete! I TOLD you we weren't going to be able to do anything yet!" The taller one hit him on the shoulder, almost knocking him over accidentally._

_Pete crossed his arms. "At least I landed a hit! You're so pathetic you went down after two hits! Maybe WE'RE ready, maybe YOU'RE just weak, Joe!" Pete screamed so loud that his voice cracked._

_Joe looked like he was going to punch the other boy. He probably would've if his arm wasn't sprained in the fight and the last boy spoke up. "Could you two not beat the shit out of each other?" His eyes were shadowed by an oversized cap._

"_YOU JUST SHUT UP!" Joe hollered at him. "YOU can't do ANYTHING! WE spent the WHOLE time protecting YOU, Patrick!"_

_Patrick looked at him in disbelief. Then he just pulled his cap over his eyes some more, sat down, and pulled his knees up to his chest._

"_OH, now you're going to cry? We should just get out of here and leave you all alone to get eaten by some more Punks!" Joe had grown volatile now, stepping towards Patrick, who tensed up even more._

"_LEAVE HIM THE FUCK ALONE!" Pete grabbed Joe and pulled him back. Andrew watched them all alone in the middle street, silent. He continued to watch them as Joe and Pete continued to shout until they eventually got into a fistfight. Patrick continued to sit alone, shaking. And once Pete and Joe had wasted most of what was left of their energy, they sat down apart from each other._

_After it was silent for a minute, Andrew got up and simply started walking down the street. Patrick quickly followed. Then, seconds later, Joe and Pete did as well, all four of the boys keeping silent as they walked.

* * *

_

Joe kicked a discarded beer can as he and Andrew walked along the hallway together. "When did we get beer anyway?"

"At the supermarket, remember? We got like, three six-packs." Andrew replied, with a bottle of coke that he chose over beer (he wasn't able to find the beer, anyway).

"Why'd we get so much? We almost never drink, for some reason I can't understand."

"It was such a good deal!"

Joe kicked another can they came across, just a few feet away from the first. "Well, someone broke into it. Was it you?"

"Nope. Was it you?"

"Nope. Was it Patrick?" Both Joe and Andrew looked at each other, and then said in unison. "Nahhh…"

They eventually reached the door to the archway to the living room and kitchen. Immediately, they stumbled upon what they thought was a pile of random trash. But it was actually a small pile made solely of beer cans.

"Whoooaaa…" Andrew commented. "That's like, a dozen cans." They both led their eyes to the hunched over figure at the counter that was Pete. He was wearing a black hoodie over a lime green tee.

"Ahhh… having a drink or two, Pete?" Andrew said nervously, stepping over to Pete. In response, Pete said nothing, crunched his beer can and tossed it in the general direction of the other cans, but didn't even come close to his target, even though he was looking that way. Pete ignored this fact (and Andrew and Joes' presence) and reached for another can of beer.

"Hey now, how about leaving some for the rest of us?" Joe dragged the beer away from Pete a bit.

Pete stared at it for a minute, comprehending what to do until he simply reached up and snatched another can of beer. Before opening it, he finally looked up to Joe. "DO NOT tell me what to do," Pete mumbled in a daze, his dark hair falling into his eyes.

"Welllll, vampire or not, you won't be able to _walk_ at the pace you're going. Just slow down a bit." Joe's tone was a little more serious.

Pete looked at Joe again. "Youuu…" He murmured, appearing to be thinking of a good insult. "You… don't know nothing about beer. Or nothing."

"That didn't make any sense!" Andrew mentioned, also pulling what was left of the beer away from Pete. Pete turned around quickly to Andrew, as if realizing he was there for the first time. "Hnnn… where'sh the other one?" Pete slurred.

"Patrick?" Joe asked.

"Yeahhh…"

"He's in his room,"

"… okay." Pete got back to his can of beer, pausing only to cough and to say one more thing to Joe and Andrew: "Go away, leave me alone!"

"Ah, no. Sorry." Joe simply replied, smiling broadly.

Pete paused, letting his impaired brain comprehend what he said. "Why the fuuuuck not?"

"So you don't trip and crack your head open, my drunken friend!" Andrew placed a hand on his shoulder.

Pete once again paused to think about that statement and put out a response. This time, though, he didn't speak at first, and only let his hair fall further into his eyes. "No… you never leave me alone… leave me… go way…"

"When have we ever just left you alone?" Joe was still smiling and took a seat on the floor.

"Youuuu never doooo…" Pete moaned. He slumped over and let his head rest on his half-full beer can. "Why… can't none of you never leave me lone…" Pete slurred. "Even when I went with Punks… you wouldn't… go away…" He paused. "Go awayyy…" He moaned, with a slight edge of anger in his voice. "You'll just hurt… self…"

Andrew and Joe looked at the inebriated Pete for moment in silence, which only took a minute, but felt a lot longer to them.

Finally, Pete broke the silence. He stood up suddenly, knocking over the stool he was sitting on and reeled around to face Andrew. "You! Go away! All three of you!"

"Oooookaaayyy, I don't think one more for the road will be necessary." Joe caught Pete before he fell over onto the counter. Supporting Pete, he dragged him away and turned to Andrew. "Let's put him to bed before he downs all our beer."

"Haha, yeah!" Andrew laughed and walked beside the two. As they walked down the dark hallway again, Andrew sighed. "Well, that was awkward."

"Yup." Joe answered.

Another moment of awkward silence filled the room. "He's usually a lot angrier when he's drunk, isn't he?" Joe pondered.

"Yeah, he punched a total of five holes in the wall last time!" Andrew laughed at the thought, and Joe joined him.

At the sound of the voices, Pete's brain used what little energy for thinking it had left. "No solicitors…" He murmured.

* * *

_Pete ran down what must've been the seventh alley that night. He had never been to this side of town. Though it wasn't any rougher than the parts he was used to, Pete was so scared he could barely see straight._

_After running down the dark alley and coming out on another unfamiliar street, Pete suddenly reeled back into the alley way after seeing who was coming down the other way; three more Dandies. Pete had faced Dandies a couple of times before, and they weren't as tough as he feared. But this entire part of town was filled with dozens of them. It was the first time Pete had ever dealt with so many vampires at once, let alone Dandies, the most formidable of the vampires. Not only that, but their leader was among them tonight._

_Pete frantically ducked between a dumpster and empty trash can, gasping for breath in fear, almost hyperventilating. He kept quiet as they passed, having too much fun, laughing too heartily, being too rowdy to even hear Pete's heavy breathing. One of them, who Pete would later know as Vulcan, was shooting bolts of dark energy in random directions, his maniacal laughter tainted with the smell of expensive liquor. Thanks to his general inebriation, Vulcan didn't hit the dumpster Pete was hiding behind or the wall directly next to him, although Pete was pretty sure he heard a cat's death shriek._

_Pete was attempting to locate his friends before he was attacked, bitten, or both. He dashed out of the alley way and into the one across it, running fast and straight into a wall._

_He reeled back from the wall, clutching his head. It didn't really hurt all that much, but he was in a panic._

"_Running around aimlessly, now, in the middle of the night?" An ominous voice came from behind him. "Tsk tsk,"_

_Pete gasped and jumped back. "G… GET BACK! Leave me alone!" Pete took out a stake and pointed it at The Baron, hands shaking too much to point it straight._

_The Baron chuckled as Pete summoned up what was left of his courage and ran towards The Baron with his stake. When he was close, The Baron hit the stake out of Pete's hands and it went flying away from both of them. Pete threw a punch near the side of The Baron's head, but he raised his hand in a counter. _

_The Baron smiled cruelly. "Don't blink."_

_In a second, The Baron was behind him and Pete felt warm teeth sink into his neck. Pete had his blood sucked time and time again before, but this time was a lot different. The Baron kept his teeth in longer..._

_When the cruel vampire finally pulled back, Pete collapsed onto the cold cement and shook in pain. "What… did… you… do?"_

"_I made you better," The Baron coolly answered.

* * *

_

Pete woke up in his coffin with a gasp, swinging his head up. He once again broke the latch that was supposed to keep the coffin shut but was no match for the force of Pete's nightmare-powered neck muscles (proven many, many times by now).

Pete stepped up and out of the coffin with all the grace, poise, and enthusiasm of an overweight sloth. He trudged into the kitchen right next to the living room where his coffin was, and realized that he was the last one into the kitchen that morning.

"Wow. Morning, sunshine." Joe teased. "Your hair is in your eyes, by the way."

"No crap," Pete grumbled and took the last seat at the counter, next to Andrew.

"How's a vampiric hangover feel?" Andrew asked as Pete slumped over and rested his aching head on the counter.

"Hnnn-unnnggg."

"'Kay."

"My coffin needs to be cleaned…" Pete murmured.

"What?" Patrick said. He pushed away the toast he was eating. "Now see what you did! Why did you tell us this? What are you, a cat with a litter box?"

"Alrighty then." Andrew continued drinking his iced tea for a moment. Then he reached over to a hot drink beside him and held it out towards Pete. "If I give this to you, you won't chuck it at me, right?"

Pete took the drink but just put it back on the counter. "M hd hrtshhh."

"I beg your pardon?" Joe said. "Speak up, we can't hear you through your emo-ness."

Pete lunged across the counter and grabbed Joe's T-shirt by the collar. "MY. HEAD. HURTS." After a few more seconds, Pete released Joe's now-wrinkled collar and sat down.

Andrew hit the counter with his hand. "Here's an idea!" He stood up. "For the benefit of Pete and those around him, we should go out and get him a hangover cure!"

"Yeah, we don't have anything here." Patrick agreed. "There's no more Pepto Bismol, no more energy drinks ONE DAY after we went shopping, we forgot to get hot soup, and Claire from the supermarket bit all our tomatoes, so we can't try tomato juice shake-kinda-things." He paused. "And no 'hair-of-the-dog-that-bit-you', because there is no more beer left." Patrick looked accusingly at the others.

"Hey, don't look at us!" Andrew said defensively. "Pete drank all of it but like, four cans, and Joe and I figured we'd finish that off."

"Thanks for sharing!" Patrick pouted and crossed his arms.

"Let's go find a hangover cure!" Joe declared, ignoring Patrick, which only made him pout more.

"Let's find a hangover cure! TO THE VIGILANTE-MOBILE!" Andrew joined Joe.

"Did I mention my _intense _head pain?!" Pete growled.

"Follow them," Patrick pointed to the departing Joe and Andrew and followed them.

"…Why?" Pete said to himself as he trudged after them.

* * *

**In case you haven't figured it out yet, the boys in the first flashback are supposed the vigilantes, just a lot younger. Adorable, aren't they?**


	10. Hell on Wheels

**I do not own the plot this fic is based on. _D_ to the _I_ to the _S_ to the _C_ to the _L_ to the _A _to the _I_ to the _M_ to the _E_ to the _R_.**

**First appearance of MCR! And I apoligize if they seem a little out-of-character. It's the biz.**

**Car chase scene. It is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend writing one.**

**Also, I appreciate all of your slayer suggestions. I will look upon them, and think about them very much.**

* * *

"So, what are we looking for, exactly?" Joe asked the inhabitants of the car in general. He was driving and Patrick had shotgun next to him.

"I need something for my hangover," Pete mumbled from the back. He had the hood of his red and black sweatshirt pulled over his face.

"So back to the supermarket?"

"No! I don't want to go back there!" Patrick whined. "That girl creeps me out! And it's like, eight P.M. on a Saturday. They're definitely going to be working."

"Then just a '7-11' type place?" Joe asked.

"Yehhh." Pete murmured.

Andrew jumped forward form the back. "My rapier plays music! Let's put it in the MP3 player jack!"

Patrick fumbled for the rapier. "DON'T STICK YOUR SWORD IN-"

"Mellow out, Patrick! Just the handle!" Andrew insisted.

"What? What do you mean just the…?" Patrick got cut off by rock music blasting through the car.

Andrew was singing along. "_I don't blame you, for eating gnu, botchilism pained me, for eating it!_"

"ANDREW, SHUT UP!" Pete shouted. "THOSE ARE _OUR_ LYRICS! WHY ARE YOU MESSING THEM UP?!"

"_STOP YELLING AT ME!_" Andrew hollered back. Then he quieted down. "Besides, those are your lyrics! You wrote them! And Patrick sang them, blame him for not singing clear."

"Oh! That reminds me!" Pete said, and then started rummaging around under the seat in front of him.

"What are you looking f-" Patrick was interrupted when Pete reached his hand forward and plopped a twelve page booklet in front of Patrick.

"There. I wrote some lyrics. I must've forgotten to tell you and they got lost in the car somewhere."

"THIS IS LIKE, FOURTEEN SONGS! HOW LONG DID YOU FORGET?!" Patrick shouted. Pete cringed at the sound of someone else yelling for the third time that short car trip.

"Honestly, guys! You're all so immature!" Joe was getting frustrated. "Don't make me come back there!" He glanced at the lyrics book with his hands still on the wheel, then completely turned his around and reached over to the packet to grab a page of writing. "Hey Pete, what's with this one really long song title that's all-"

"KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE ROAD!" Patrick shouted.

Joe slammed on the brakes and very narrowly avoided hitting a woman with her dog, and the beagle was peeing on the fire hydrant they were standing by (before the poor pup's release was suddenly interrupted by his owner yanking him away from the car that was currently threatening their life). Joe turned to Patrick angrily. "_DON'T YOU EVER, EVER YELL AT THE DRIVER!_"

While Joe and Patrick started to argue and Andrew sat singing to himself, Pete looked out the window. Something caught his eye from the large apartment complex they had stopped by. "Hey, Pat…"

Patrick paused from his angry discussion with Joe and turned around to the backseat behind him. "What?"

"You know that apartment complex? The one we're right by? The relatively abandoned one?" Pete sat and stared, looking bored, with his view still fixed on the big, gray cement apartment building.

"Yeah, with like, the one family or two and one old guy?"

"Are you sure it wasn't something more like fifty vampires on motorcycles?"

The sound of three frantically turning bodies filled the car (and the sound of one person trying to jump forward but promptly getting yanked back by the seatbelt).

"Oh shit!" Joe exclaimed. "They're coming for us!"

"THEN DRIVE AWAY!" Patrick shouted.

"DON'T YELL AT THE DRIVER!" Joe frantically shouted as he stomped on the gas.

"STOP YELLING, **PERIOD**!" Pete screamed

"_LOOOUUUD NOISEEESSS_!" Andrew contributed. Everyone turned around to stare at him (except for Joe, who had to drive). Andrew shrugged. "I heard it in a movie,"

Meanwhile, Sorel and his lieutenants paused to stare at the noisy car which was trying to disappear from their view.

Gerard turned to Brandon. "Are they just yelling at each other?"

"I guess so." Brandon looked around. "Say, where are your friends?"

"What? They're not here?" Gerard whipped around. "Ugh, dammit! Where the hell are they?!"

"Come on, emos!" Brandon shouted in the air and revved his engine. "Pick up the pace!"

Sorel sighed. "Oh, look. Now Pete, Patrick, Joe, and Andrew are getting away. What a hassle!" He turned to Gerard, looking slightly ticked off. "Gerard, if you can't keep track of your tagalongs, you can't have any. This is the last time, got that?"

"Yes, sir!" Gerard answered nervously. Then he looked to his feet but talked to Sorel. "Um… they said they… don't like being called tagalongs…"

Before Sorel could say anything, Brandon interrupted. "Well, they don't like being called 'emos' either, but I do it anyway!" Brandon laughed loudly.

"Look at that. The vigilantes got away." The blond rapier-wielding girl said. "Nice one, Gerard."

Gerard looked embarrassed and blushed a little bit. He whipped his head around again at the source of voices. "There they are!"

"Hey, can I bring this?" A dark-haired man with a face slightly similar to Gerard's called out. He had a spike-covered Morningstar.

"YES, Mikey, you can! Hurry uuuup!" Gerard hissed through his teeth. "Get on your choppers! NOW!"

The man paused in front of three others following him. "Uh."

Gerard blinked. Then said, "What do you mean, '_UHHH_'?"

"We lost our… choppers."

"HOW?!"

"They challenged me to poker," Sorel answered. He didn't look angry so much as bored, resting his chin on his hand, slumping a bit on his motorcycle.

Gerard put his head in his hands and started mumbling obscenities to himself.

"Barons! We're moving on!" Sorel picked up his posture and started up his motorcycles.

Gerard looked up. "But they don't have-"

"Their problem! _Not ours_!" Sorel snapped. "We're going, Gerard. You're coming unless you want your precious bleached blond hair dyed red."

"In **that** way," Brandon added in case it wasn't totally obvious.

Many of the insignificant Barons found the whole scene entertaining. Gerard gave a 'sorry-I-don't-have-a-choice' look to his band as he drove off. Mikey gave him a 'what-the-hell!' look.

* * *

"That was a close one. Do you think we lost 'em?" Joe looked in the rearview mirror. "What street are we on anyway?" 

"That's right, Joe. We lost them. It will take them forever to find us." Pete grumbled from the backseat. "And the next town over is Candyland."

"Oop, ooooh, yeah, uh-oh, Pete. Sarcasm. Communication roadblock right there! What can we do to work past this conflict?" Joe said back in a calm manner.

"…Shut up." Pete clutched a lock of his own dark hair in his hands.

After a minute of sitting in silence, waiting for something bad to happen, Patrick piped up. "Do you smell something burning?"

"Nope!" Pete released his singed hair, clutched his hands into fists, and shoved them into his pockets.

"I hear motors." Andrew commented.

"Oh goodie!" Joe started the engine. The car took off again, with the choppers chasing after them.

"NOW did we lose them?" Joe grumbled.

"Lose who?" Brandon pulled up next to them.

"This reminds me of my first driver's test." Patrick commented, looking nostalgic.

Brandon pulled back a little bit, up to Andrew's window, and smashed his fist thru it.

"AAAGH! GET AWAY, GET AWAY!" Andrew cried out in surprise as Brandon grabbed a handful of Andrew's hair. Andy grabbed his rapier and bashed Brandon over the head a few times with the pommel of his rapier. Five bonks later, Brandon fell off his chopper.

"I'm telling you, its like, exactly like my first driver's test!" Patrick stated again. "The getting attacked by vampires, the smashing of the hands through the window, the trauma of the head…"

A loud thump filled the car and the vehicle bobbed up and down once.

_KA-CHUNK!_

Someone had stuck his rapier into the car right between Joe and Patrick. The wielder was making a circular sawing motion.

"_Serious_ case of déjà vu here!" Patrick said.

"How'd Lieutenant Dumber get on the roof?" Andrew asked.

"I have a guess on how he's getting out!" Joe yelled.

Patrick grabbed his stake crossbow. As the circle was completed, Andrew shoved the circle of car roof free, and Patrick fired the crossbow. It stuck the vampiric lieutenant in the forehead, and he almost fell off the car, screaming. He rolled onto the trunk, but managed to maintain his grip. "That asshole still has my good silver rapier!" Andrew yelled angrily.

"Yeah, but you've got a cool, gadget-y one now!" Joe commented, as he swerved to avoid two more biker vampires. "Patrick, shoot at them for me."

"Right!" Patrick and Andrew said simultaneously. Patrick started taking shots from the passenger-side window. Andrew poked his sword up through the roof, but missed the lieutenant, who had managed to pull the stake out and was climbing back toward the front.

The lieutenant grinned. "Thanks!" He said, using the blade as a handhold. Andrew pressed a button, and the blade lit up red-hot. The vampire screamed and rolled off the car, his hand burning. "AHH! My name is Gabe!"

"What?" Andrew asked rhetorically.

* * *

Brandon whipped around. "Oh man, my chopper! I have to get a new one! I have to _steal_ one!" Brandon smiled cruelly at the sight of a nameless Baron coming his way. Brandon stuck his arm out and clotheslined the poor nameless henchman right off the vehicle. 

"Sorry, sort of!" Brandon climbed on and drove off after the vigilantes.

Gerard's band stood off to the side, panting. "Oh, man!" Another dark-haired one said. "We just ran all the way here and now we have to do that just to get a freakin' mode of transportation?!"

"OR we could go there." The one with light-colored, floppy hair and a pierced lip pointed to the shop they were next to, a motorcycle shop.

"That's convenient! Good job, Bob!"

"Please, hold your applause."

Within thirty seconds they were all equipped with new motorcycles, the four started off in the same direction most of the Barons had gone in before.

Mikey stopped next to Sorel, who was leaning against his motorcycle, unenthused, but still satisfied with the fact that his gang seemed to be doing well, judging by their less-than-graceful performances the past few days. He was surrounded by the female rapier-wielding lieutenant and five henchmen consisting of four overly muscular guys (one had a tattoo of a cell phone) and one girl with dyed black hair.

"Oh, look! We seemed to have found new vehicles in a clever, fast way!" Mikey said, louder than usual. "Did I mention we stole them?"

"Get a donkey if you want to kiss ass, punk." Sorel snapped.

"OHHHH!" Sorel's posse said in unison.

"Your brown-nosing will never help the fact that you and your friends are only slightly better than my nameless henchmen." He took a swig of beer and rustled his box of Chocolate Chip Cooke Dough Bites. "Actually, if you weren't Gerard's brother, you wouldn't be getting any special attention at all."

Mikey sat in temporary silence with his mouth open. "We… we have talent! Gerard fought with us before we joined you, you know!" He crossed his arms. "And _she_ isn't even doing anything!" He nodded in the direction of the girl, who was sitting in a tree, applying black nail polish.

"I have an excuse," She replied without looking over.

"Oh yeah? What?"

"PMS. Which means that Sorel has given me permission to rip your face off if you piss me off without being stopped."

"True." Sorel responded. "Now get out of my sight."

Mikey shrugged and drove off.

Sorel shook his head. "We better start killing those vigilantes. This town is running out of beer." Sorel tossed away his empty beer can.

* * *

Brandon continued his drive. _Now how should I do this? Go onto the car itself?_

_  
_Brandon passed by Gabe, who was lying on the ground, twitching with his leg bent unnaturally. _Oh. Okay. I won't jump onto the car itself then. _Brandon scowled and increased his speed until he reached the Vigilante Mobile. He pounded on Joe's window, who jumped in surprise at seeing Brandon next to him.

"Open up, Watson!" He pounded harder.

"NEVER!" Joe shouted back.

Brandon was not happy. He responded to this by punching through the window and began choking Joe.

"AACK!" Joe stopped steering and tried to squirm away from Brandon. He grabbed Brandon's hand and, in a fit of adrenaline, twisted as hard as he could.

There was a loud crack and Brandon shouted. "OUCH! MY ELBOW! YOU ASSHOLE!" Brandon replied by squeezing Joe harder.

"…_Helllp_!" Joe squeaked out.

No one was noticing that the car was not being steered and hit a couple of nameless Barons. Patrick jumped into action by reaching over quickly and staking Brandon in the hand. Joe got back to his steering wheel when Brandon finally let go, but used one hand to rub his neck. "Jeeeeez… the hazards of this job sometimes!"

Pete took his turn to jump in surprise when someone reached his hand near him through his open backseat window.

Gerard was hanging onto the side of their car. He growled, baring his canines and climbed farther up the car, reaching his arm in farther.

Pete responded by sticking his own hand out the window and grabbing Gerard's face, burning it. Gerard howled in pain and fell off the speeding car. Andrew just sat there, pointing with his jaw slack. "What're you looking at, Andrew?" Patrick asked.

"Uhhh…" Andrew noticed Mikey and the rest of Gerard's posse approaching. "I'll tell you later."

"NOW what? This is really getting tiring!" Joe fumed.

Patrick checked in the glove compartment. It was rarely used for anything but weapons anymore. The weapon he found was a net gun. "Okay, this'll do!" Patrick stood up in his seat and looked out of the new hole in the roof. However, he had to duck back down to avoid being shot at by armor-piercing bullets, courtesy of Bob's AK47.

"What's wrong?" Pete asked.

"HOLY SHIT, they are armed!"

Pete thought for a second. He reached forward and grabbed the net gun. Then he stood up on the seat fro more height and stuck himself out of the hole.

"ARE YOU NUTS?! THEY'LL BLOW YOUR HEAD OFF!" Patrick shouted.

"IT'LL GROW BACK!" Pete shouted.

"LET'S WATCH IT!" One of the dark-haired vampires shot a grenade launcher at Pete, who ducked in time.

"Wow, Frank, you almost got him. Almost." Bob said unenthusiastically. Mikey laughed.

The last of Gerard's posse, a guy with overly-bushy hair, adjusted the flamethrower on his back and aimed at Pete.

"**WHAT THE FUCK! YOU HAVE A FLAMETHROWER?!**" Pete ducked back down, similarly to a Prairie Dog.

"He has a flamethrower," Pete turned to Patrick and relayed the news to him.

"I heard," Patrick nodded.

Pete went back up into the minefield-like atmosphere.

"Hey, it's like 'Whack-A-Pete'!" Andrew said, giggling at the way Pete popped up.

Pete ignored him as he took aim. "Okay… this one's for…" He frantically searched his mind for something. "… THE CUPCAKE SHOP!" He shot the electric net gun at the exact same time as the guy shot a plume of flames. Luckily for Pete, not only did he duck back down in time, but the fire did not stop the net, only lit it on fire, sending a fiery net onto the wild-haired vampire. He was knocked off his motorcycle, flaming as he went.

Bob and Frank stopped, but Mikey kept going. "One of you should die from this!"

"I so don't need this." Pete shook his head. This time, when he popped out of the top of the car, he climbed all the way out and onto the roof. Then he crawled onto the trunk. Mikey was already practically touching their bumper. Pete kicked him hard on the chest and he went flying off the back of his chopper, almost dropping his flail.

Meanwhile, after an injured Brandon and Gerard had come back to Sorel on their damaged choppers, Sorel decided to take matters into his own hands. Sorel was ranting at them in anger as he climbed onto his chopper. "If I wasn't absolutely sure there was nobody better than you lot, I'd kill you! If this is what's going to become of you, I might as well of not killed that blue-haired, weapon-toting girl at all!" Sorel was settled onto his chopper. "At least _she_ could throw things!" With that, Sorel drove off.

"I can throw stuff…" Brandon mumbled, dejected.

"Shut up, man." Gerard mumbled back. He grabbed an ice pack out of Sorel's beer cooler and put it on his face.

"PETE, get back in the car! Don't lollygag out there!" Patrick shouted.

"Lollygag?" Joe laughed.

"It's one of those words that nobody uses anymore." Patrick seemed to have enjoyed using it. He adjusted his black baseball cap and banged on the ceiling of the car. "PETE! Hurry-"

"I'M COMING!" Pete climbed to the roof of the car, slowly and steadily. He stopped, though. "You know, guys, the view is really good up here! And the wind is awesome!"

"You're crazy!" Joe shouted.

"And totally stupid!" Patrick shouted.

"Relax!" Pete said back into the recently made hole. "We're going, like, half the speed as we had before. No one's chasing us anymore."

"Yeah, where _are_ we anyway?" Andrew asked.

"I have no idea. Are we even in our own town anymore?" Patrick looked around.

"Yeah, we just haven't been here in years." Pete answered. "This was the first part of town that was abandoned."

"Look, it's the middle school!" Patrick said, pointing to a school that was in bad condition, with peeled paint and dead landscaping. "I hated that place."

"Me, too," Everyone else said in unison.

They slowed down to an almost-stop, causing Pete to wobble dangerously. "Did anyone actually like us?" Joe asked the rest of the car.

Patrick shook his head.

"Well, 'Valley Road Middle School' looks pretty dead." Pete commented, his voice a mix of surprise, nostalgia, and a small hint of happiness.

"You will, too, soon enough!" Sorel pulled up behind them.

"Speed up now again, please," Pete said quickly as he braced himself.

* * *

**HEY, their Honda Ci-whosawhatsit tour is actually coming near my town! Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go use my good-grades-on-my-math-and-social-studies-finals-power for my advantage. But first, I have to practice widening my eyes in the mirror.**

**Curse the evils of having the money but needing transportation!**


	11. Bang the Doldrums

**Disclaimer: I do not own the video this fic is based on. Disclaimer is as disclaimer does.**

**The car chase scene ends here. Ta-da! AND a flashback at the end!**

* * *

"Can't you go any faster?!" Pete yelled at Joe. 

Joe got angry. "Excuse me, Pete, but do you have any idea how far we are above the speed limit already?!"

"I DON'T CARE! IT'S NOT LIKE THERE'S TRAFFIC AROUND HERE!"

"FINE!" Joe sped up even more, reaching about eighty miles per hour. He pulled on a sharp turn, sending Pete sliding across the car and almost right off of it.

"HOLY SHIT, I'M **ON** THE CAR, YOU KNOW!" Pete hollered.

"SPEED UP, SLOW DOWN, SPEED UP, SLOW DOWN! MAKE UP YOUR MIND! _AND DON'T YELL AT THE DRIVER_!" Joe shouted back.

Pete held onto the car tighter and bit himself on the wrist both to calm and steady himself and to make sure he wasn't having a nightmare.

Sorel kept chasing after them at a steady pace. With many different weapons floating beside him, he took aim with his first weapons of choice: forks. He tossed a few particularly big ones at the vehicle.

One fondue fork hit and pierced the windshield without shattering it. "Whoa, look how cool that looks!" Andrew was mesmerized by the spider web-like crack in the back windshield.

Another couple forks weren't aimed quite as carefully and hit the bumper, and another didn't even make impact with the car. Frustrated by this, he took better aim and finally landed a fork in Pete's side.

"DUDE! AGAIN WITH THE FORKS!" He pulled it out. "That almost got to my gallbladder."

"This is familiar all right, but not from my driver's test…" Patrick said to himself.

Sorel growled and sped up. Joe sped up in response.

"Hey, guys…?" Joe mumbled.

"What?" Everyone responded in unison.

"Is this a bad time to mention that we don't have… a lot of gas left…?"

Before anyone could press the 'oh shit' button (located conveniently on your temple, by the way), Sorel used knives as his next choice of projectiles.

Pete dodged a bread knife, a carving knife, and a butter knife, and they all took residence in the roof.

Joe was silent for a second. "There's a carving knife… slicing part of my 'fro…" It was true, as the point of the carving knife had gone into his hairdo (but not into his head).

"Heads up!" Pete said. A steak knife went flying through the hole in the roof and landed on the dashboard. "And that's not a 'fro yet!"

"That was lucky…" Patrick murmured.

"We're low on gas, and a powerful, murderous vampire who hates us is chucking kitchenware at us. Define 'lucky'," Andrew replied.

Sorel had overheard the last comment. "I don't have any guns," he yelled as he took aim with a melon baller. "That's lucky for you." _Note to self: carry a machine gun on the motorcycle. _Sorel tossed the melon-related kitchenware and it hit Patrick in the shoulder.

"That looks like it hurts." Andrew pointed at the instrument as Patrick sat with his mouth open. "Hey Pat, does it hurt? It looks like it hurts. Does it hurt? Does it? It's bleeding. Do you realize that?" He poked the melon baller. "It's just stuck there. It _looks_ painful. Is it painful? Does it hurt? I mean, it must be in prrreeeeetttttyyyy deep to just be stuck there. Did it touch the bone? That'd be weird. Does it hurt? Does it? Does-"

"YES. IT. FUCKING. HURTS."

"'Kay."

"The next thing won't be so nice!" Sorel began tossing everything he could think of. A brick broke the back windshield and a piece of broken glass embedded itself in Pete's knee.

"Andrew! Take your rapier!" Joe grabbed for Andrew's rapier, still plugged in to the car. Once he had his hand all the way to the rapier, a pair of scissors was tossed right into Joe's left hand. "OUCH! _SCISSORS_?!" Joe grimaced as he pulled them out and continued driving, despite his bleeding hand.

Sorel, out of weapons, finally reached the speed of the car and began closing in on them. He pulled up to the side of the car and took out his trusty sword, which he began trying to slash Pete with, and used his telekinetic powers to control the chopper.

Pete could dodge most of the hits but finally got slashed on the forearm after trying to land his own hit on Sorel. "Hey guys, a little help?!" He called out to the rest of the guys in the car.

Patrick took out his crossbow (with him the entire time) and shot a stake at Sorel's ankle, getting a direct hit.

"Little bastard!" Sorel reached down to pull the stake out.

"Uh-oh, we're going under a tunnel!" Joe said. "Duck, Pete!"

Pete high-kicked Sorel in the chin just as they were going under the tunnel. While Sorel's motorcycle kept going for fifty feet or so, Sorel caught his face on the sign above the entrance of the tunnel that said "No trucks over eighteen feet" as Pete ducked down.

"Well, that was quite a short tunnel…" Joe said as they exited back out into the sunlight.

"Woo hoo! We got away from Sorel!" Andrew cheered.

"I'm bleeding…" Patrick commented quietly.

"Uhhhhh, communication roadblock!" Pete pointed just ahead of them. Brandon and Gerard were planted firmly in the center of the road.

"We'll stop you!" Brandon shouted.

"I can't believe he's saying 'we'…" Gerard said to himself.

Joe beeped the horn. "Get out of the way, possums!"

Gerard and Brandon didn't obey, and held their hands out to stop the car, Brandon with a cocky smile and Gerard with his eyes closed. They did succeed in stopping the car, but both were hurled back thirty feet into a humongous fruit stand. The momentum also sent Pete skidding across the road in front of them for about ten feet.

The vigilantes sat and stared. Finally, Joe broke the silence and thrust his good fist into the air. "We win!"

"Except for Pete," Patrick held his shoulder as he watched the chafed Pete stand himself up and wobble a bit.

Joe beeped the horn. "C'mon, Pete! Get back in the car! We're all waiting on you! Time to get you that hangover cure!"

"I think it's gone…" Pete murmured as he got into the back seat.

"And we're off!" Just as Joe tried to start the car, it spurted a geyser of oil and refused to go.

"Oh, that's great…" Patrick said weakly.

"NOOOO! THE VIGILANTE-MOBILE!" Joe and Andrew shouted in dismay.

"Well, we had no gas left anyway," Patrick mentioned.

"Come on, we might as well get started…" Pete got out of the car and went to the bumper, putting his hands on the back of the injured car.

Andrew and Joe, both very upset, followed, and then Patrick.

"One… two… three…" Patrick led the countdown. "PUSH!"

"Hey Patrick, you spurted! I never saw that before!" Andrew commented. "Maybe you should have just left the melon baller in."

"Annnndreeeeeewwww?"

"Yyyeeeeessss?"

"SHUT UP."

"'Kay."

* * *

Brandon pulled his head out of a watermelon, his face and hair covered in the reddish pulp.

"That's the last time I listen to you…" Gerard said, half-conscious.

* * *

_Patrick grimaced as his back hit the locker for what felt like (and probably was) the tenth time that week. He looked up to see the oversized teen in front of them that was holding Pete by the scruff of his T-shirt._

_"HEY!" Joe yelled at a young teacher standing outside his classroom door. "Are you going to do ANYTHING besides stand there and watch this guy beat us up?"_

_The teacher shrugged. "I'm…going to get some stuff." He reached into the pocket of his jeans (which were mismatched with a tan suit jacket, white button-down shirt, and tie) and took out a small piece of paper and a little paper bag, ignoring the thirteen year-old in front of him._

_"You're the worst teacher ever!" The boy shouted._

_"Ah-ah-ah! Some have said I'm the best!" He rolled up the little piece of paper._

_Joe stared at him in disbelief through his black eye. "Are you… rolling a joint?!"_

_"SSHH!" The teacher snapped, taking out a lighter that appeared to give the middle finger when used._

_"I'm going to tell the principal that you're doing that," Joe crossed his arms, temporarily ignoring the fact that his other three friends were still taking turns getting beaten up._

_"WHAT? NO! Don't do that!" The teacher looked around. "Okay okay! Look, look, look! I'll help you out! Don't squeal!"_

_Joe stared at him._

_"There are some bottle rockets in the big drawer in my desk, along with another lighter. Go get 'em, then shoot 'em at tall, dark, and ugly. I'm not getting involved DIRECTLY, so don't ask."_

_"Patrick, you aim well," Joe said, shaking Patrick out of the frozen state he had been in after looking at the blood coming from his nose, "Go get the rockets!"_

_"Huh? Oh, right!" Patrick ran into the classroom, and emerged seconds later as he lit a bottle rocket. "Hey dickwad!"_

_The bully turned. "What? You want more?"_

_"SUCK ON THIS!" The bottle rocket fired right into the bully's mouth. The bully yelped and staggered down the hall, gagging, screaming incoherently, and spitting out smoke and teeth._

_"That was cool! Now can you give us compensation for our lunch money?" Andrew asked. _

_"Hell no." _

_"Aww…"_

_"What are you doing getting shoved around anyway?" The teacher asked. "I see you in gym class. You guys are good." He pointed to Patrick. "Except for you."_

_"HEY! I'm good at dodgeball!" He protested, putting his oversized blue baseball cap straight._

_"I don't know. Pete, why don't we fight back?" Joe asked Pete._

_"'Cause Dirty said not to, after you broke that last kid's nose. He said revenge is a dish best served cold, anyway." Pete answered, shrugging. "I don't know what that means."_

_"Was he drunk?" Patrick asked._

_"Yup,"_

_Three girls, one of them in a cheerleader outfit and the other two in matching yellow tennis dresses, walked by. When they saw Joe, Pete, Patrick, and Andrew, they coughed "Freaks!" into their hands and giggled loudly._

_"Yeah, YOU WISH YOU COULD HAVE US!" Pete called after them._

_"Well, don't be upset," The teacher said. "You guys remind me of myself when I was your age. And look at me now!"_

_The boys stared at his scruffy hairdo, mismatched clothing, and joint._

_"Riiiiiiight…" Andrew murmured._

_"Well, you're not a sight yourself!" The man responded and walked back into his classroom._

_"I'm getting a soda!" Joe started to walk away._

_"We have no money," Patrick said to him, moping slightly._

_"You can break into the machines again!"_

_"Not AGAIN?!"_

* * *

**Has anyone seen The Carpal Tunnel of Love music video? It's awesome! I love the Happy Tree Friends! FOB are so cute as little animals...**

**Anyways, expect a new chapter soon. I prewrote, like, three chapters until I realized "Hey! I haven't sent any of this in!".**


	12. Surprise Attack!

**Disclaimer: I own little within. Run! Run! Run!**

**Something Claire-ish this way comes.****

* * *

**

"Ohhhhhh jeez…" Joe eased himself onto the beat-up couch." THAT was one of the most tiring things I have done in a while."

"I still can't believe we pushed the car across most of the town…" Andrew said, tired. He was on the easy chair with his hand over his eyes. Patrick sat at his desk with his head on the desk and a bandaged-up shoulder under his T-shirt.

Pete plopped down at the plastic chair at the counter with an unheated can of ravioli. "Patrick, you're ringing."

"Huh wha?" Patrick fumbled for his cell phone. "I don't recognize the number…"

"Well, answer it anyway. What's the worse that could happen?" Joe mumbled.

Patrick opened up the cell phone lazily. "Hullo?"

"Hi, mister hat!" A young, cheery female voice called on the other end. "It's me, Claire! Remember me? From the food shop? I _know_ produce. Produce is cool."

Someone knocked at the door; inducing Pete, Andrew, and Joe to all say "Not getting it!" at once.

Patrick sighed and got up to answer the door. "Yeah yeah, I remember you. How'd you get my number?!"

"I stole your friend's cell phone! It was so cool. Stealing is fun and COOL. I was doing it about the same time I was biting you…" She sounded like she was chewing bubble gum.

"You bit me?!" Patrick said, his voice cracking a bit. He looked over to the others and mouthed "Who lost their cell phone?"

Pete and Joe held up their mobiles. Andrew looked guilty.

"Annnnnnnnnndrew?" Patrick closed his eyes.

"Well HEY, I've been using the cell phone in my rapier for a while now!"

"-and your number was first in the address book!" Claire said enthusiastically. "His cell phone is so cool. It has a camera. Cameras are cool!"

"WE'RE COMING!" Pete shouted to the visitor, who knocked harder on the metal slide.

Patrick walked over to their 'front door' slowly. He thought Claire's voice was getting louder. "Yeah, the photos are mostly of vampires, though…"

"Yeah, of Punks and Dandies and Skinheads and stuff. Vampires are cool. I'm a vampire! Isn't that cool?" She continued her rambling.

"Yeah, cool…"

"Plus, I still got to suck your blood! That's cool!"

Patrick had reached the gate. Once he reached his hand down and just touched the handle on the bottom, a voice hissed to him from behind the door, "_Biting you is cooooooolllll_."

Patrick yelped in surprise and jumped back, dropping his cell phone. He opened up the garage-type door quickly. He found Claire and four unfamiliar girls about Claire's age on the other side.

"Hiiii!" Claire waved at him. "We came for a visit!" She looked behind herself. "These are all my friends. Introduce yourselves, guys!"

"Hi!" The first girl looked to be Hispanic. "I'm Alicia."

"They call me Braids!" The next girl said. Her golden blond hair was in two braids.

"Because of the hair, of course?" Patrick asked.

"No! Weird thing is, my parents actually named me that!" She shook her head. "Unfortunate, huh?"

"Yeah, that sucks." Patrick furrowed his eyebrows, trying to think of what drunken parents or hippie parents would actually name their kid 'Braids'.

"No, we just call her that 'cause of the hair!" Claire said, giggling. "She's also a pathological liar."

"I most certainly am not!" Braids insisted, looking insulted. "I'm super honest!"

"This is Noodle!" Alicia introduced the next girl. "She's an exchange student from Japan! But her English his really good! She has a real name, but we like to call her Noodle."

"So why are you introducing her?"

"I like to hear myself talk."

The skinny Japanese girl looked at Patrick. "Yayyy! I like meeting American slayers! So cute."

"'Yay'?" Patrick repeated. "Okay."

Patrick looked at the last girl expectantly. She said nothing, only looked at her feet and twiddled her fingers.

"That's Chris!" Claire said. "She's real shy."

"Hi…" Patrick extended his hand towards her.

The pale girl stepped away from him. "I'm Chris…"

"We already established that!" Claire said. "Can we come inside?"

"Uhhh…" Before Patrick had time to respond, they walked inside.

"Here's your cell phone!" Claire gave it to Andrew, trying to toss it to him, but almost catching him in the head.

"WHOA!" Pete just realized they had intruders and jumped out of his chair and into a fighting stance.

"Oh, don't get worried Mr. Vamp. We just came to ask ques-**ti**-ons about our vampirism." Claire said to Pete. "You knocked your ravioli over."

"What do you want to know?" Pete asked, clearly suspicious of the girls. He paid no mind to the red meat sauce he stepped in.

"Lots of stuff!" She sat down at one of the other four dining chairs. Alicia and Braids soon did the same in the others.

Noodle looked slightly distressed at the prospect of her and Chris not having chairs. She ran over to the easy chair and, with Joe in it, pushed it all the way over to the counter.

"AHHH! WHATAREYOUDOING?" Joe yelled, grabbing on to the fast-moving chair.

Noodle looked at Joe angrily when the chair came to a stop. "Get out! Get out!" She waved him away and yelled at him until he obediently got up out of the chair. Noodle quickly sat in it and Chris leaned on the arm of the chair, biting her thumbnail.

Joe looked mildly bothered. He pouted and grabbed a cola from the fridge.

"What powers do we get?" Claire was the first to ask a question.

"Uh…" Pete scratched his head. "You can heal fast and jump really high now that you're a vampire. You're stronger and faster. And… um…" He thought for a minute. "You can probably learn to teleport eventually. I guess some vampires get special, extra powers…"

"How does one get these special powers?" Claire narrowed her eyes.

"I think there are some factors… like…" Pete paused, being caught off-guard. "Maybe it's just random. Or it…" He looked down at his hands. "…might have something to do with who turned you…"

Andrew jumped up. "Pete! That reminds me! I was going to ask you!" He ran over to Pete. "What did you do earlier with your hands?"

Pete talked to Andrew, but was glancing at a puzzled-looking Patrick. "I… don't really know w-what you're, uh, talking about?"

"You knoooooowwww, with the-"

"Helping Patrick with his bandages?" Pete said quickly. He was aware his voice was higher than usual. _Damn, I wish I was a better liar… _"It's all a matter of basic first aid!"

Andrew raised one eyebrow. "Noooo, I mean the thing with the burning of Gerard's face."  
Pete swallowed and froze. "Uh."  
"HUH? Burning?" Joe looked up. Pete could feel everybody's eyes on him.

"Another question!" Claire interrupted the tense moment. "What's that mixture stuff that Mr. Sorel said you take?"

"It prevents me from going crazy on my friends. It, like… keeps me from needing blood." He answered quickly. "Basically, you either take that or go after blood."

"Okay." She narrowed her eyes. "Will I age?"

Pete looked at the floor. He hated thinking about this one. "To a large extent… no." His eyes widened as he hit the mental rewind button what she had previously said in his head. "WAIT. Go back. What did you say earlier about 'Mr. Sorel'?"

Claire rolled her eyes and spread her hands out like it was obvious. "My boss-type guy! Duh! Who else?"

The vigilantes stared at Claire and her friends, open-mouthed. "Y… you… you're part of Sorel's group now?!" Patrick choked out. He looked at their outfits and saw they were all wearing matching leather shorts, different solid color T-shirts, and black leather jackets of different lengths. _WHY didn't I notice that before?!_

"It's fun!" Alicia insisted. "You should try it!"

"Ohhh, that reminds me!" Claire said. "We still have to go get him beer, remember?"

"Yes!" Noodle blurted, jumping up form the chair. "We must go! Bye bye, Mr. Vigilantes!" Noodle led the way our, sprinting out the open metal gate. Her friends followed.

Claire stopped and turned around. "By the wayyyy…" She looked around. "Sorel is pretty strong, you know. He-"

"WE KNOW how strong he is." Pete interrupted her.

She giggled nervously. "Oh! No you don't! Well, I have to go now…" She turned to Joe. "Stop staring at Alicia's cleavage!" She snapped at him before running after her friends.

Joe spat out a mouthful of Dr. Pepper. "I was not! I was not! I was SO not!"

"SO. What now?" Andrew asked.

"NOW we sleep!" Patrick put his wrist over his eyes. "It feels like I haven't slept in a really long time. Or something."

"I'm going to help myself to my precious little fruitshake!" Pete commented.

"I'll have one, too!" Andrew said to Pete.

"Oh, oh! Smoothies! I want one!" Joe waved his hand in the air.

"I could go for a smoothie," Patrick took his wrist off of his tired eyes.

"You must be kidding," Pete growled. He took the garlic out of the pantry and tossed it onto the counter.

"I'll have bananas and strawberries with some protein powdered in mine, please!" Joe said, oblivious to the look on Pete's face.

"My name is not 'Jamba Juice'!" Pete answered.

"Yeah. It's Pete. I'll take soymilk, bananas, and a little bit of every kind of berry we have!" Andrew smiled.

"I'll have what Joe's having." Patrick put forth.

"NO!" Pete said.

"Sorry, Pete. If you didn't want to make us dinner you shouldn't have offered!" Joe ran off into the hallway to avoid Pete's glare, and Andrew followed.

Patrick avoided meeting eyes with Pete. "I would run, screaming like a little girl, but I'm too tired."

Pete growled again and started gathering ingredients out of the pantry.

They were in silence, until Patrick pulled his hat up a little over his eyes. "Where did I get this one?"

Pete smiled (a rare occasion when not having to do with murder, blood, etc.). "Isn't that the one I got you at the baseball game?"

"Nope. That's the red, white, and blue one." Patrick managed to inspect his hat without pulling it all the way off.

"Is that the one Joe got you at the souvenir shop?"

"Nope."

"Your favorite baseball cap?"

"Nope."

"The one from the pawn shop?"

"Nope."

"The one Andrew made himself?"

"That one fell apart one minute after its creation." Patrick answered.

"Oh shoot. I'm losing my memory." Pete narrowed his eyes. "Uhhh… is that the one… you got from that girl?"

"Nope."

"Ugh!" Pete stomped his foot. He was clearly getting frustrated. "It's the one you got from the gym before it was lynched! It has to be that!"

Patrick snapped his fingers. "No, I remember! It's the one my dad gave me when I was like, five."

Pete's smile faded. "Ah. Right." He turned his attention back to the smoothies.

Patrick changed the subject. "We only mentioned earlier, we didn't really talk about… what was it? Oh yeah, your burning hand power!" Patrick looked Pete in the eye. "Isn't that the same thing The Baron had?"

Pete swallowed. "No. It's different." He turned back away and turned the blender on.

Patrick waited patiently for the blender to stop. "How?"

"How what?" Pete quickly said.

"How is it different?"

"It just is!"

Patrick rolled his eyes. "Like how?! Why is it different?!"

"Because I'm not The Baron, Patrick!" Pete turned the blender on. When he was done, he bolted out of the room with three glasses. "Your smoothie's all that's left. See ya!"

He left a confused Patrick alone, with his smoothie in silence.

* * *

**They say denial is the first stage in grief... What? Oh, right, I'm getting off-topic again, aren't I? Oh dear.**


	13. So Miserable and Stunning

**Disclaimer: I do not own this music video.**

**Updates are going to be pretty much random. Don't know when or how far in between. I received bad news; my dog got cancer. I'm not focused much on writing right now... I'm busy being emo in my room alone... but at least I have some kick ass fight scenes to work on.**

**Plus, angsty flashback to the extreme! Let's investigate their past a bit, shall we?

* * *

**

_"But why are they in OUR town?" The seven year-old boy asked his mother. _

_"Many vampires just need… a place to…" The brown-haired woman searched for the right words. "A place to stay, sort of. They settle in, and then they try to make more people like them."_

_"And I stay away from them. I know." He replied calmly. "You've told me before!"_

_She sighed._

_"Why are you sighing so much today, Mom?" _

_She didn't answer. "What your father said was right… you'll get hurt if you go near them. From now on, don't ever go outside after sundown without one of us."_

_"What about Patrick, Joe and Andrew?" He cocked his head to one side._

_"Don't go out without one of us!" She repeated._

_"I have another question!"_

_"Yes?"_

_"Why do you have your bags all out?"_

_She hesitated. "We are going to have them out in case… we must leave."_

_He looked unconvinced, but nonetheless accepted the answer. "Should I empty out my backpack?" The boy looked willing to lend a hand._

_"No! Petey, please don't do that!" Her son was surprised by the quickness of her answer. She sighed yet again before continuing. "I think it's time you went to bed."_

_"It's only 8:30!" Pete whined._

_"Please,"_

_He looked at his saddened mother. "Okay, Mommy,"

* * *

_

_The puzzled dark-haired boy picked up the phone. He was proud of the fact that he knew how to dial already and all his friends knew how to do was answer it._

_"Hello?" A timid voice, sounding about the age as Pete, answered._

_"Patrick! Are your parents there?" He shouted his question into the phone._

_"No! They aren't! I don't know where they went!" He answered, sounding near tears. "I'm all alone in the apartment! I called their new c-cell phone b-but it d-didn't answer!"_

_"Well, don't cry. You call Andrew and I'll call Joe."_

_"'K-kay." Patrick sniffled and hung up._

_Pete hung up and dialed a different number. He waited for it to ring three times before another boy's groggy voice answered. "Gugh… hullo?"_

_"JOE! Are your parents there?" Pete shouted again._

_"Uhn. I dunno. Probably. What a dumb question! Is that why you called me so early?"_

_"It's not early. It's four A.M."_

_"You never sleep!" Joe grumbled into the phone. "My parents are probably here, yeah. Why?"_

_"Mine aren't,"_

_"MAYBE THEY'RE SLEEPING."_

_"THEY'RE GONE, STUPID!"_

_"I'm not stupid!" Joe whined. "I'll go check," He sounded like he had shaken most of the sleep off. Pete listened to the sounds of shuffling footsteps, of someone dropping the phone, of someone picking it up, and of more footsteps. "Hmm... nope, they're not here. AGH! WHY AREN'T THEY HERE?!"_

_"Maybe they went out to fight vampires!" Pete suggested enthusiastically._

_"AGGGH! WHY AREN'T THEY HERE?! THEY LEFT ME ALL ALONE! IT'S DARK OUT!" Joe wasn't in tears, but he was in shouting hysterics. "VAMPIRES ARE GOING TO EAT ME!"_

_"NO THEY AREN'T!" Pete shouted. "Look! Patrick is calling Andrew! Maybe there was some sort of emergency!"_

_"Yeah, maybe," Joe had calmed down considerably. "Well…what do I do now?"_

_"You wait. I'm going to call back Patrick and-"_

_"What do I do until then?"_

_"Watch cartoons."_

_"Yay!" Joe hung up._

_Pete redialed Patrick. "Hey, Pat? Did you call Andrew?"_

_"How do I dial?" He asked in response._

_"Are you kidding?" The young boy sounded exasperated. After he relayed directions for dialing, he hung up and waited for Patrick to call him back for about ten minutes. In that time, he heard nine scary noises that made him flinch and eight that made him jump._

_When the phone rang, he was obviously relieved. "Hey, did you actually get through to Andrew?" But Patrick probably didn't hear Pete over his own crying._

_"Y-y-yes!" He whined. "I called Andr-dr-drew and he said his parents w-w-weren't there either!"_

_"Don't panic! Your parents just-"_

_"They t-t-took alllll their stu-uff!"_

_"They did?" Pete's eyes widened. Did his, too? He hadn't bothered to check. "Maybe they just-"_

_"L-lleft me all a-l-looooonnnne!" He moaned._

_Pete sensed the panic in his own voice. "Don't interrupt me! Maybe-"_

_"I'm alonnne in th-the darrr-k-k!"_

_"Stop interrupting! Let me-"_

_"I'm going t-t-to diiieee!"  
Pete sighed and let Patrick go for another minute or so before he got worried too and hung up suddenly. He hugged his knees to his chest and prayed he wasn't as alone as he thought he was._

* * *

"Paaaaaatriiiiiiick," Pete whined with arms around his head. "I'mmm siiiiiiiick." 

"No, you're not," Patrick was hard at work with a new weapon, protective goggles on his head.

"How can you tell?"

"You haven't eaten anything yet today. Try that."

Pete looked up from the beat-up couch and glanced at Joe, who was at the counter, eating cheesy Doritos.

Andrew walked in from the bathroom. "HEY! Doritos! Gimme some!"

Joe looked up in surprise. "_NEVER_!" He shouted.

While they got into a fight that was only half play, Pete got up and read the mail on the half-broken wood end table near the door. "Our mail lately is pathetic. I almost miss junk mail…" He tossed the one "Important document! Open immediately! For resident only! Private!" 'letter' into the metal garbage can. "Hey, Joe. You have mail." Pete flicked the letter in the air over the wrestling Joe and Andrew. Joe had Andrew in a Full Boston Crab. The letter, sealed with a blood red initial, landed on Joe's head, causing him to jerk even tighter for a moment.

"AAHHH!" Andrew moaned. "My _spine!_"

"Is our mailman a vampire or something?" Joe asked, looking at the letter.

"Probably." Andrew managed.

"We don't even have a mailman," Patrick said over his power drill. "We haven't in seven months!"

"I think people have pretty much thought this town imploded, anyway," Pete said, searching the new fridge they looted from a department store.

Joe finally released Andrew, though Andrew didn't move. "I wonder who it's from… there isn't any return address. Spooky."

Joe looked at Patrick, who had his back turned to them and seemed pretty involved in his technical work. He looked at Pete, who also had his black hoodie-clad back turned to them and seemed pretty involved in his soda and also involved in ignoring them.

Joe opened the letter and instinctively first looked at the bottom to see who it was from. "It's from that Gerard guy!" He said to Andrew quietly.

Andrew's mouth dropped and he kicked the empty envelope away. "Don't touch it! Drop the letter! What if it has anthrax?"

Joe dropped it. Then he had a look of realization and looked at Andrew in a you're-an-idiot kind of way. "Anthrax?"

"Could be," Andrew shrugged.

Joe waved his hand as if waving the idea out of the air, and picked up the letter next to his jeans. His eyes read the letter. "Blah blah… he _apologizes_." He looked at Andrew in disbelief.

"No way!" Andrew crossed his heavily tattooed arms. "That's such bull. What else does he say?"

Joe raised his eyebrows. "He wants me to come, 'cause he wants to…make amends or something. He's sick of being with Sorel."

"You don't _seriously_ think so, do you?" Andrew narrowed his eyes.

"No. He probably is BS-ing," He looked skeptical, but then his eyes softened a bit. "I don't know… he doesn't sound tired of being around Sorel. He sounds… _scared_. He says that weapon girl got killed because she didn't kill Patrick." Joe read more. "Gerard says Sorel and the sword lieutenants you fight have been dropping hints left and right that he and Brandon are also going to be killed for that stunt they pulled with stopping our car."

Andrew uncrossed his arms. "But… you're not really going to go there, are you?" He shook his head in disbelief. "I mean, where does he want to meet?"

"The Baron's old central mansion," Joe said, reading off the letter.

"Whaaat? This is such-… oh jeez. Just throw the letter out."

"Well, wait. If he's right, we have a really powerful ally."

"Not Brandon?"

Joe shook his head. "He says Brandon is acting like Brandon again and is confident that Sorel 'won't be able to replace them'."

"Welllll, forgive me for saying this, but Brandon may be right. How many of his officers can he kill before he runs out of strong soldiers?"

"Gerard says he _also_ thinks Sorel has been dropping hints that…" Joe read closer. "No way… he thinks Sorel thinks Claire and some of her friends may be able to replace them."

Andrew looked deep in thought. "That might make sense… if Sorel wants to send them off doing missions and stuff when they become members right off the bat… to test them…?" Andrew sighed. "You still shouldn't go there alone."

"Gerard says to go alone… but hey! Here's an idea! You come with me!" Joe jumped up.

"Hey, yeah!" Andrew smiled. "Sorel is probably keeping fairly strong tabs on Pete and maybe Patrick."

"Then it's settled!" Joe put his hands on his hips and looked around again to make sure Pete and Patrick weren't listening. "We'll just take some weapons, get where The Baron's central mansion is off of Pat's computer and then we're off!"

"When does he want us to meet him?"

"Midnight. Let's go there at eleven-thirty!"

"To be even safer!" Andrew agreed.

"Yeah!" Joe looked happy. "Pete was wrong. We're smart when we want to be!"

"Yeah…" Andrew agreed. They stood in silence.

Andrew lashed out and grabbed the red bag. "MINE!"

"_MY_ DORITOS!" Joe shoulder-tackled Andrew.

* * *

"You _must_ be joking," Brandon hissed. He was talking to Sorel. 

Sorel stared back at him, through his third beer bottle in the last half-hour. He was sitting atop ten wooden crates of the drink in the empty parking garage. That story was filled with motorcycles, stolen furniture and electronics, and beer and candy for Sorel (stealing any without permission was a crime punishable by death and/or torture with hot pokers). "Brandon, I'm certainly not going to go after those brats now. It's happy hour." He took another gulp. "I'm actually letting you people drink some of _my _beer!"

"Really, Brandon!" The blond woman was practicing checking her reflection in her thin rapier. She picked up her half-empty beer bottle and smiled calmly at Brandon, like a teacher trying to will an unruly student to calm down. "Show some respect, please. Those who do not show respect will not get any. Sorel is your leader, and a good one to boot." She took a swig and her face darkened. "So SHUT THE FUCK UP."

Sorel lifted his bottle towards her in toast. "So says the lady,"

"What's up your ass?" Brandon snapped at her.

"The fact that you **ran over** my partner earlier today." She pointed to her partner, Gabe.

"I haven't fully healed yet from that, you know!" He had an ice pack on his head. "My head still hurts AND I can't even participate in happy hour because you're running over me REMOVED MY STOMACH and now I have to WAIT FOR IT TO GROW BACK!"

Brandon rolled his eyes. "And where's Gerard?" He asked Sorel.

Sorel shrugged. "He said something about looting an old mansion. It's none of your business."

"Well, you know what? Screw happy hour and screw you too!" Brandon turned on his heels. "I'm going after my opponent; Pete. I won't stop until he's dead."

"Good luck with that," Sorel responded.

"You should try pulling his hair!" An enthusiastic voice came from behind. Brandon turned to see Claire arriving to Sorel.

Brandon rolled his eyes and dashed away out of the parking garage. The others watched him.

"That guy's an idiot," Sorel said to himself.

"And a dickhead!" Gabe added, half-whining.

Sorel turned his attention to Claire. "Where have you been for the last…" He glanced at Gabe's digital watch, but it was broken somehow during the day. "… some hours?!"

"We got diverted!" Claire dropped ten full shopping bags in front of Sorel. "We got mostly gummies and chocolate bars, that's all they had,"

"Good! Claire, have you ever had beer?"

"My grandma says alcohol is the devil. Do you have any soda?"

Before Sorel could respond, the rapier-wielding girl put her blade away and grabbed Gabe. "I'm bored, too. Come on, Gabe; let's help Gerard and his posse loot that mansion. He told me which one it is."

"Why am I coming, Elisa?"

"Because," Elisa responded calmly, "you can lift seven times your weight in suits of armor, priceless paintings, candlesticks, and whatever else The Baron kept lying around."

* * *

Gerard sniffed the air on the second-floor balcony and grinned. He looked down at the wrecked courtyard, fountain, and front wall. Last time a fight had taken place here out front, Patrick had ended the whole thing before it started with a single blast from his Sonic Reverb Cannon. His grin was at the thought that this time, the attackers wouldn't be so lucky. But the fight lay on the inside this time. He turned and walked inside, then jumped to the first floor. Bob sat against a wall replacing the tank on his flamethrower. Frank sat in front of the open first-story window with an old-fashioned pirate's telescope, formerly The Baron's. 

"I can't believe The Baron had not only a Vietnam War-issue flamethrower you could give me, but three spare fuel tanks for it laying around!" Bob yelled gleefully.

"He's a pack rat," Gerard replied with a shrug.

Ray walked in. "Gabe and Elisa are here to loot this place."

Frank looked up. "Wow, Gerard, you were right." He handed twenty bucks to Gerard.

"Told you they'd be here," Gerard said with a smile. "Bring them to me, I need to tell them some stuff."

"Heads up," Frank said, folding up the telescope. "They're coming, and they'll be here in five minutes."

"They?" Bob asked.

"He brought sword-boy."

"Hey! I owe you a twenty, too, Gerard," he said, fishing in the pocket of his gold-embroidered black jacket. "I can't believe you won the bet with me over whether Andrew would be the only one he'd bring."

"They'd guess Sorel would be watching Pete and Patrick," Gerard said as he grabbed the money from Bob's hand.

Mikey walked in, a flush heard in the background. "They're here already? I owe you ten," he said. Bob and Frank exchanged glances.

"Told you they'd be early," Gerard said. "They're ten minutes earlier than I expected, though."

Ray returned, Elisa and Gabe right behind him. "Ah, hello guys. I was expecting you."

"You were?" Elisa asked with a raised eyebrow.

"He was," Bob said. "He's kinda creepy that way."

Frank chuckled, looking out the window again. "Hey, look, Joe came armed. He brought some big gun on his back. Like it'll work against all of us."

"He came visibly armed!" Gerard said. "Ray, you know what that means!"  
"It means I owe you ten dollars, you win the bet."

"Wait wait wait wait…" Mikey said. When he was sure he had everybody's attention, he repeated himself once more. "WAIT!" He then thought for a minute. "You made a bet with everybody about this battle with Joe? Are you a gambling addict?"

"I didn't know he was a gambling addict," Ray said, scratching his head.

"I'm not a gambling addict," Gerard snorted.

"What's more amazing is that he won every bet," Frank pointed out. "Do you know what this means?"

"It means I'm good at predictions based on what I know about people," Gerard laughed. "And it means that talent just scored me sixty bills. "

"Wait," Gabe said. "What's going on? Are we stealing from this manor or not?"

"Maybe later," Gerard replied. "In the meantime, we're all springing a kickass ambush and killing Joe and Andrew. Capiche?"

"Yeah, sure," Elisa chuckled. "I'd love to get some sweet revenge on that dumb kid. He thinks he's so cool with a gadget-loaded rapier he can't even work."

"Good!" Gerard turned. "My boss's former house is a freaking awesome place to ambush people. _Especially_ the basement. So here's what we're going to do…"

* * *

**I made Gerard cool (I mean, it isn't like he's not cool anyway, I don't mean that). He'll show you some more special tricks soon.**


	14. The Break's Over

**Disclaimer: I do not own the video this fic is based on or Enzyte. We're painting your trash gold while you sleep.**

**I'm running out of disclaimer quotes... I just need to research some meaningless non sequiters.**

**You know something? It's actually a pretty good thing that the odds of any of the real memebers of Fall Out Boy seeing this fic are slim to none (and slim just left town). Because if I were to get an anonymous review from a 'pwentz' or'pstump' or 'FOBpetewentz' or some other pen name like that saying that they were the real ones and started to talk about my fic, I would probably go off on them and yell-flame like "WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE MAKING FUN OF ME?!" and "YOU JACKASS!" and stuff kind of like that.**

**Ooops... that was an informative rant. Uh... please don't do that. I won't be happy.

* * *

**

Pissed off yet with a purpose, Brandon walked towards his target: the vigilantes' warehouse. Yes, he had it all planned out… it was foolproof! His amazing plan went a little something like this:

Go to the warehouse. Step one completed.

Make Pete come out.

Beat the shit out of him.

Kill him.

There was no way Brandon could lose this match. He was confident he was better than Pete, and Pete has been lucky to have been getting the better of him lately. Brandon was taller, had more brute strength in him, could use nunchucks, and maybe faster. The only thing Pete had going for him were his little maneuvers and techniques and his friends. And two out of three of said friends were conveniently AWOL.

And so Brandon came to a halt at the metal garage door-like entrance and began to pound on it as hard as he could without breaking it.

"PETE! Come out and face me once and for all!" Brandon demanded. He continued pounding until he got an answer.

"What the fuck-… Brandon?" Pete answered from the other side of the door.

"Yes, good observation, idiot! Now stop being a coward and get your scrawny ass out here!"

"You don't have to yell, I'm coming," Pete opened the gate. "What do you want?" He spat.

"To kill you,"

"Aren't you the pleasant one…"

Brandon wasted no time in directing a high kick at Pete's head. Pete grabbed it and looked at Brandon angrily.

"Hey, let's not ruin the warehouse. Let's take this outside!" He tossed Brandon backwards, away from the makeshift home, and jumped forward, sliding the metal door down first.

"Ruin the warehouse? It's been ruined before, and it wasn't a sight to begin with!" Brandon smiled. "Why close of your only source of help?"

"Because I don't need help to beat you!" Pete dashed towards Brandon, only to have the back of his neck meet with Brandon's old nunchaku (good as new).

"Ouch! You fixed those?" Pete rubbed his red neck.

"Yup. Didn't take much. They work fine. And now I can use them to beat you up!" Brandon raced towards Pete with his 'chucks, but Pete rolled his eyes, grabbed the weapons and sidestepped Brandon and ripped them apart yet again.

Brandon looked at them in horror. "N…n…ooo! Not agaaaiiin!" He wailed.

"Ha ha!" Pete stuck out his tongue.

"NO! IT'S NOT FUNNY!" Brandon jumped forward and kicked the separated nunchucks with all his might. They flew up and hit Pete in the face.

"Shit! You jerk!" Pete rubbed his newly developing black eye.

"That's what you get when you screw with Brandon!" He proudly declared.

"…Did you just refer to yourself in the third person?"

Brandon cleared his throat. "Uh, yeah, maybe."

"You know, I can't believe Sorel found some jerk idiot vampire like you wandering around and convinced him to join up with the Barons so easily. Aren't you more the backstabbing type?" He punctuated this with a kick to Brandon's gut. Brandon caught it, and threw Pete into the wall of the warehouse.

"How did you know I plan to backstab Sorel sometime soon?"

"Because it was obvious?" Pete asked with a blank look.

"That's IT! I'm getting serious!" Brandon threw off his leather jacket, revealing a T-shirt. The shirt was black, and said in red letters, 'ALL THESE THINGS THAT I HAVE DONE.' A burning skyline was on the back.

"Nice shirt," Pete said. He meant it.

"Thanks," Brandon replied before going forward. Pete took a stake out of his pocket and thrust it forward. When he did so, Brandon wasn't in front of him, but had teleported behind him.

"What's up?" Brandon grabbed Pete's shoulders from behind and Pete was immediately reminded of The Baron.

Brandon teleported into the air, about two stories up. He twisted his body and elbowed Pete hard in the gut, taking advantage of the force of gravity, and they went hurtling back down towards the ground, Pete' back absorbing most of the shock for both their impact.

Brandon picked himself up off Pete and brushed himself off, as Pete clutched his stomach and coughed up generous amounts of blood. Brandon picked up the stake that Pete had dropped in surprise from Brandon's first teleportation. "I was really trying for something more like three stories up, but I guess two will have to do!" He twirled the stake in his hand. "Unless you'd like to go again?"

Pete's only response was rolling on his side and continuing his coughing. After a minute, he got up slowly and stood up straight. "I'm SO not going to lose to YOU,"

At Pete's getting up and insistence on continuing the fight, Brandon shrugged in a whatever-you-say kind of way. Using his teleportation powers again, he 'ported back behind Pete (actually, since his powers still were not perfected, he ended up more _diagonal_ to Pete than behind him, but it was close enough). Taking advantage of the fact that Pete was obviously not at his fighting best in the state he was in, Brandon tackled Pete and slammed him onto the ground face first.

Brandon lifted himself up and looked down at Pete. "WOW, this is a lot easier than I thought!" He laughed loudly. "Ohhhhhhh god… you're so much fun to beat up!"

After that, Pete started to lift himself up shakily, but Brandon stomped Pete's neck back down, and Pete cried out in pain. Brandon stomped him hard a few more times. Then, when he was finally getting tired of that, he bent down closer to Pete and held the stake above him.

"Say goodnight, weakling!" He aimed the stake precisely above where Pete's heart was on his other side (Pete was still on his stomach). "I hope you enjoyed- WAAAUUGHH!" Brandon was tackled in the side and he and Patrick went hurtling towards the left.

"WHAT THE FU-… YOU LITTLE… whoa!" When Brandon had turned to the side to kill whoever had attacked him, Patrick almost staked him.

"THIS is for trying to kill Pete!" Patrick thrust forward with the stake again, but Brandon blocked with his forearm. The stake stuck, and Brandon ducked down, then jumped forward with both arms and legs, sending Patrick sailing back about fifteen feet.

"YO! Whoever you are!" Brandon pointed to a bunch of Barons that had been watching from a nearby fire escape with microwave popcorn. "Hold off the gadget king while I stake Pete!"

They stepped forward. One of them chugged the bottle of beer he had and threw it away, his grin distorting the scars checkering his face. "With pleasure."

* * *

Joe and Andrew walked in the room. It was a dusty entrance hall, and it had once been an art gallery. More recently, several chairs and a card table had been added, but even these were sporting a fine layer of dust. The chairs were mostly flipped, and several tell-tale clothing items identified vampires being staked here. They too were dusty, as were the table's contents: some cards, some cash, and in one of the seats, a box of Gummi Bears and a beer bottle. "Sorel," Andrew said calmly. Pete and Patrick, when they had been here, had proceeded through the next door into the main hall, but their gaze was drawn to a new, dust-free object in the room. A sign read, "I'm downstairs – Gerard", in what looked like blood. 

"He's so leading us into a trap," Joe complained.

"Well, that's why there're two of us," Andrew replied. They walked down the stairs so conveniently next to the sign. The view downstairs was much more shocking and unpleasant. The room was, for lack of a better description, a dungeon. There was only torch and candlelight brightening the windowless, underground room. The walls were bare stone, as was the floor. Several large switches adorned the wall, as did weapon racks. Most horrible, though, were the skeletons. Several rotting figures hung from shackles on the wall. Most were fully rotted to the bone, and what clothing was left on them bore whip marks. The clothes were caked in blood, and a bloody lash or two were strewn carelessly on the ground. "Dude," Joe whispered, "The Baron tortured people in here."

"I know that!" Andrew yelled back, his voice very high. "Where's that Gerard guy? I don't see him anywhere around here!"

"That's because you don't know where to look," a voice behind them said. They turned around with a jump. Gerard was grinning at them, hanging from a pair of shackles around his wrists. His black-and-gold ringmaster's costume shone in the flickering light, as did his mad grin. He was hanging from ten feet of chain on each arm, but because of the room's high ceiling, he was still a few feet off the floor. He grunted and pulled on one of the chains, and it loudly snapped free of the ceiling. He grunted again, and the other snapped, allowing him to drop to the floor in a crouch. "Welcome," he said. "I used to be a Dandy, and I spent a fair amount of time torturing people here. Had Pete become The Baron's apprentice, you all would have spent some quality time here – most likely him torturing you."

"That's really pleasant, Gerard," Joe said, looking a bit pale. "Now are you going to betray Sorel tonight and join us or not?"

"Sorry," Gerard replied, fur beginning to cover his grinning face, "but our special tonight is ambush!" He transformed, not fully into a wolf, but into an intermediate form. Fur covered his body, his feet stretched, a tail grew, his face became lupine, and claws and pads appeared on his hands and feet. However, his body stayed humanoid. He crouched down, and dashed forward. Andrew had no time to react as Gerard ran in on all fours, leapt up, and shoulder-tackled him, sending him up and away at least twenty feet to the far side of the cavernous room. He hit the ground, and slid another ten or fifteen feet.

Before Joe could do more than yell, "HEY!" and get halfway into a fighting stance, Gerard had whipped around the chain still on his wrist. The chain wrapped tight around Joe's neck, and he yelped. Gerard growled and yanked the chain, pulling Joe towards him like a yo-yo. Werewolf strength stacked upon vampire strength was quite a lot of muscle power, and Joe was whipped into the air as he flew toward Gerard. The wolfish lieutenant grinned and thrust his skull forward, smashing it into Joe's chest. The chain dropped from Joe's neck, and Joe flew across the room and into a wall, knocking some dust from it.

"Do you like this form?" Gerard asked as he ran towards the rising, stunned Joe. "It took a lot of practice to achieve!"

"It is impressive," Joe admitted. "But can it escape an electric net?!" He pulled the net gun from his back, and fired it. Gerard front-flipped over the net fired from the gun, and landed on Joe's chest with both rear paws, laughing. Before he could begin slashing at Joe's face, though, Joe grabbed Gerard's leg, pulled him off, and yanked him into the wall as he got up. "Were you eating while you trained? You weigh, like, ninety pounds!"

"I'll help in a second, Joe!" Andrew called from across the cavernous room. As he stepped forward, though, two swords crossed in front of him, blocking his advance.

"Where do you think you're going, pretty boy?" Elisa asked him.

"I'm going to go help my friend," Andrew tried hopefully. _Ooo, pretty boy._

Gabe nodded seriously. "Maybe after we kill you. Is that alright? We'll make it quick, I promise."

"Is he seriously asking permission to kill me?" Andrew asked.

"I don't really know anymore," Elisa admitted. "He hasn't been the same since his head was severed a few years back. Now, onto business." She slashed at Andrew, who jumped back.

Joe ducked from Gerard's claw-laden swipe and kicked him backwards. "You're not that great once I really get into fighting you,"

Gerard looked up at him, an angry glint in his eyes. "Is that so?"

"Yup," Joe blinked.

Gerard jumped up and forward, and Joe quickly took a step back.

Gerard smiled. "That was a twitchy, nervous little step. Having self-confidence issues?"

Joe knit his eyebrows in confusion. "Uh, what? No."

Gerard leered at him through his half-wolf face. "You're obviously a liar. I can tell by how you're moving and how you hold yourself that you're not sure you can win this."

Joe blinked. "Huh?" He crossed his arms, but still kept his legs in a more ready-to-fight stance.

"The way you're crossing your arms- people do it to form a barrier in front of themselves."

Joe stared at him, unsure of how to react. "But… what…?"

"And your tense facial expression sends the message to me that you're anxious." Gerard rolled his furry neck around before continuing. "That isn't the only piece of evidence… your Adam's apple jumped, which is a signal that you're nervous."

Joe opened his mouth to talk back but looked at the floor in front of him the second before. "I… don't get it. What are you saying?"

"Another signal. Looking away or hesitating before speaking- both of which you did- are signs that you're unsure of what you're saying. And if you're unsure of what you just said, it means that you probably 'get' what I'm saying. That _also_ means you realize most of what I'm saying is correct, yes?"

"Yes? Uh… no! No, what the hell?!" Joe shook his head. "I don't even… follow…"

"Glancing to the left like you did represents lying; you **know** what I'm saying, fool. Your nervous head movements and hunched shoulders are just helping my case that you have anxiety."

Joe finally looked up at Gerard.

"And now I think your eyes are finally starting to show some…" Gerard looked up to ceiling in thought, his dark eyes squinting in concentration. "What kind of look is that… oh yeah! It's-" Gerard was interrupted by the fist that made contact with his chin in an uppercut. Gerard went flying first up, then back a few feet.

"Hostility?" Joe finished for him.

"That's the one," Gerard started to pick himself up.

* * *

**Most of what Gerard says is relatively true (or rather, the content of what he said is based on facts). I didn't want to seem like I was BS-ing so I actually did some online research on face reading and body language and that kind of thing. Actually, I thought it was kind of cool so I read up on it a bit more than I needed.**

**More Pete-bashing awaits next chapter.

* * *

**

**Patrick: Wow, Pete! Andrew and Joe sure have changed since they ordered their limited time free thirty day supply of Enzyte (which you can own if you call now).**

**Pete: Joe sure has a big boost of confidence lately! And a spring in his step!**

**Patrick: They're living large and laughing easy! And have you seen how Andrew whips out his rapier lately?**

**Pete: It sure is noticeable! Yes, they've become much more firm in their beliefs from their Enzyte: the once-a-day tablet for natural male enhancement!**

**-----**

**Yes, that was totally unnecessary, I realize that, I'm just giving them crap for their blatant product placement. I know, the sponsorships are a good thing, but I just couldn't resist temptation, I'm sorry. It isn't meant to do personal harm, I'm just teasing them...**


	15. Make A Scene

**Disclaimer: I do not own this video's storyline. Ferris Bueller, you're my hero.**

**Beware or whomping in these next chapters.**

* * *

"One of us is dying in this match, you realize?" Brandon sneered at Pete. "Since you're injured, you might do good to say goodbye to your friend Patrick now."

Pete laughed. "Yeah, right. Dying at your hands? Talk about pitiful!"

"It won't seem quite so pitiful when I'm through with you!" Brandon tackled Pete, but Pete crouched down and met Brandon's shoulders with his hands. They both stood pushing on themselves.

"And I'm injured!" Pete said to Brandon, and laughed.

This seemed to anger Brandon more. His face turned a shade of red, and he reeled back. Brandon tackled Pete again, this time aiming lower, and they both went crashing back into the wall of the warehouse.

Brandon heard Pete gasp when he got the wind knocked out of him. "Not as easy as you thought, huh?" Brandon stepped back and let Pete slide to the ground, then kicked him once in the side of the face, sending him sliding sideways a few feet.

"AAAH!" Patrick ran right beside Brandon, close enough to hit his arm, knocking him back a few feet.

"HEY, WATCH IT!" Brandon shouted, turning around to yell at Patrick. "IF I WASN'T BUSY I'D-" Brandon was knocked to the ground when the lumbering henchman with the scar knocked into Brandon's side harder.

"OUCH!" Brandon got back up. "GET BACK HERE AND APOLIGIZE OR I'LL SEE TO IT THAT YOU NEVER ADVANCE HIGHER THAN NAMELESS HENCHMAN!" He paused. "Ugh, they're frigging useless! I'll go after that gadget boy myself!" Brandon was suddenly hurled back on all fours by Pete tackling his legs. "Not YOU again!" Brandon started kicking Pete in the face with the heel of his boot. "Get off! Get off! Get off!"

Pete kept his arms tightly locked around Brandon's knees and ignored the new wounds producing on his face.

"Ugh, let go!" Brandon whipped his head around and bit Pete hard on his left hand with his fangs digging deep. Pete shouted in pain but didn't let go.

Meanwhile, Patrick continued his running. "Oh, wait… I already had you run into Brandon. No more reason to run!" He stopped suddenly, and he heard the sound of three other henchmen bashing into each other. "WOW! You guys sure do fit the part of mindless minions well!"

Patrick used his crossbow against one who began to charge again, and staked him instantly. Patrick looked up at the next four coming towards him.

_Shit… not many crossbow bolts… _Patrick began calculating his moves in his head within the seconds the Barons were charging him. _Two stakes left… I could easily stake the others if I dash backwards… but one of the girl vamps looks about ready to go around me… I could use one stake on a charging one, then turn around and use it on the girl vampire who's on a curving path… but that would leave my front side totally open… let's see… high kick… spin kick… net gun…_

Patrick took a few jumping steps backwards and staked one of the three vampires charging him in front, then immediately whipped around to stake the one that went on the curved path he predicted she would. Still turned around, Patrick ducked down and spun around in a quick circle with one of his legs out, tripping the others and shot his electric net gun twice at the other two. One was trapped in a single net and the other two were trapped together, writhing, screaming, twisting, and doing absolutely no good in freeing themselves.

"Good, now to help Pete," Patrick mumbled to himself. Just when he began to run forward though, the single vampire grabbed his ankle and pulled Patrick down. He then jumped on Patrick with the net still heavily coursing with energy. Patrick screamed in pain at the burning shocks he was getting.

Pete looked over at Patrick. "Oh no! SHIT!" Pete finally let go of Brandon's legs. "Okay, Brandon, you really need to be quiet for a minute!" Pete jumped in front of a very surprised Brandon and kicked him hard in the head. Or at least, he would've kicked Brandon in the head if Brandon hadn't teleported away at the last millisecond.

Pete ducked in reflex to Brandon's teleporting. "Where'd you go, dickweed?!"

"AHHH!" Brandon shouted. Pete looked up. It seemed the consequence Brandon had suffered for not having a set destination in mind at the moment of teleportation was his powers placing him at any given spot. In this case, it was the roof of the warehouse.

"WHAT THE HELL?!" Brandon shouted again. "How am I supposed to get down from here?!"

"Perfect distraction!" Pete laughed at Brandon's misfortune and ran to help Patrick as Brandon tried to reach his foot down to the nearest boarded up window (which, no matter how much he stretched, was still a good, unsafe seven feet away from his foot).

* * *

Andrew, by now, had come to the conclusion that though having two opponents at once that share your weapon and fighting style may seem like fun at first, it can actually develop into quite a little hell. Andrew's mind and the (currently) seventeen nasty but not deep slices on various parts of his body have told him this. 

_WOW THIS SUCKS! _Andrew thought. _If Joe is outmatched by Gerard, I have NO WAY OF KNOWING THAT! These two are blocking my view!_

Elisa brought Andrew back into reality by stabbing forward quickly. Andrew stumbled back and nearly came into contact with Gabe's rapier.

Elisa giggled. "Huh! After you and your three friends simply _separated_, this is almost too easy!"

Andrew dashed backwards, anxious to get a few seconds of thinking time. As it was, he couldn't fight them both. Somebody had to die, right now! _Oh shit, I hope it's not me. _Andrew thought right before Elisa shoved forward again and caught the dodging Andrew by his hair.

"AGH! AGH! THAT'S MY HAIR!" Andrew yelled. Flailing, he kicked Gabe back a few feet just as Gabe was trying to get a quick swing under Andrew.

Elisa tugged her rapier back, tugging back Andrew's long hair. "Ha ha!" She stuck her tongue out.

Andrew found his presence of mind again. He reached up with his sword and quickly sliced of a chunk of his own hair. This left Elisa with a chuck of thick hair on her rapier, but no Andrew.

Elisa stared at it for a moment. Then she shook the rapier wildly, as if trying to shake off a bug. "EW! Get it ooofffff!" She shoved the hair off.

Andrew felt the back of his head and inspected the damage. "Uuugh! That it is not okay! WHOA!" Andrew ducked down to dodge a swish from Gabe and stumbled back to dodge a stab from Elisa.

Andrew looked at the two. _Uh… okay… Elisa moves more strong and slow, with lots of forward stabs, kind of, like… earth-ish or something I guess. Gabe moves with more swoops and swishes, quickly… like… he moves water-ish? That would explain a lot… Gabe has gotten me a bunch of times now but I'm not too hurt from his cuts… and Elisa has only gotten me a couple of times but MAN those went deep! _Andrew clutched his Elisa-stabbed bicep in pain of her previously laid wound on it. "Oooohhh. I get it! I get how you two work! First, Elisa tries to stab me all strong and slow, like earth! Then Gabe, comes in, swooshing, like water!"

Gabe and Elisa paused.

Elisa blinked. "What the hell was that? 'Combining Sword-fighting and Geology for Dummies'?"

"No… it's 'Combining Sword-fighting and Geology for Totally Observant Smart People!' Oh, and another thing…" Andrew stepped back, and the stone his foot stepped on sank into the ground. A spiked log suspended on chains swung across the room. "This place is booby-trapped." Andrew ducked underneath, and the spiked log caught Gabe in the shoulders and Elisa in the nose, knocking over Elisa and carrying Gabe across the room. "'Totally Observant Smart Person'. It has a nice ring to it."

* * *

Joe used his knee to block a hit from Gerard. Gerard thought he was winning before, but it now appeared that Joe was pushing him. 

"What's wrong, Gerard? Powers waning?" Joe smiled.

Gerard's mouth dropped, exposing his oversized (even for a vampire) fangs. He high-kicked Joe in the jaw, sending him far up and far away. Joe was surprised by Gerard's sudden newfound strength his comment must have arose.

Gerard, on the other hand, was too furious to be surprised. He turned back into a full human without even realizing it. 'Powers waning'?! Gerard had never worked so hard in his life and afterlife until right after he became a vampire to build up as much strength and skill as was vampire-ly possible and this pathetic human in front of him was the first person since Gerard met Sorel that threatened to bring him down. No one except his current boss had ever said anything negative about Gerard's power. No one had _dared!_ Gerard always suspected that Pete was the best, even with his set of flaws, of his group. Did he… read somebody incorrectly for the first time in his life? The thought made Gerard _sick_.

Noticing that Joe was staring at him in shock snapped Gerard back to reality. He caught his breath, realizing just then that he was panting. "Er… Well, Joe, you're a better opponent than I expected… do you-"

"Your voice is cracking," Joe interrupted.

"STOP MOCKING ME!" Gerard ran towards Joe again, stumbling a bit in his steps. Joe took out his electric net gun (yep, he had it the whole time) and quickly shot Gerard. Gerard went flopping to the floor, hissing.

"Now do I kill you?" Joe asked no one in particular like a boy in a play who forgot his lines.

"Are you mocking me?" Gerard said weakly, looking up at Joe with hate and anger burning in his dark eyes.

"What? NO! I'm not friggin' mocking you! Stop that!" Joe replied, frustrated.

"Stop what?" A sinister voice said form above Gerard.

"Heyyy. Are you Gerard's brother-type person?" Joe asked.

"Yup. I'm Mikey. Pleased to meet your acquaintance!" Mikey made a fighting stance and held his Morningstar in a threatening pose.

Joe noticed Mikey's other vampire friends behind him and took a step back. "And you're all Gerard's posse?"

Frank answered this time. "Yes, and we-… wait, NO! NO, we aren't '_his_ posse'! We're fighters and former Dandies just like him!"

"It suddenly struck me that I shouldn't care!" Joe said quickly.

"Struck you like a flamethrower lighting your pants on fire?" Bob asked.

"Nooo, like a- MY PANTS ARE ON FIRE!" One of the pants leg on Joe was hit by Bob's flamethrower.

"Bob! We told you to go all out when you use that!" Ray commented.

"Yeah! Go crazy with it!" Mikey said, while Joe performed the Stop, Drop, and Roll.

"I am crazy," Bob looked at them, blinking and emotionless.

"Well, since you stole my flamethrower…" Ray began. "I'll just use this handy dandy grenade launcher!"

Once Frank got the red, mildly glowing net off Gerard, Gerard turned his head up at Ray and said between pants and heavy breathing, "What… good is a grenade launcher… if… you're in an enclosed space… like this?"

Ray looked at his grenade launcher. "Oh, son of a bitch! You're right!" He looked at the grenade launcher long and hard. "I'm using it anyway, dammit!"

* * *

**Uh-oh. Looong fight scenes.**


	16. But It's Better if You Die

**Disclaimer: I do not own the given storyline from this music video. For shame.**

**Yeah, this is the second chapter I posted in this little in-a-row segment of the whole fight scenes.**

**Remember, I in no way, shape or form expect you people to review for these chapters anytime soon. I posted them in a block so you would have more than usual to read until I update again.**

* * *

Pete ran over to Patrick and shoved the netted Baron off of him. "Hey, are you-" Before he could say anymore, oversized hands grabbed the back of Pete's neck and his left arm. 

The other two Baron gang members lifted up either of Pete's legs. They all had burns varying from first to second degree all over their faces in a net-shaped pattern.

"On the count of three, we find out what comes off first: head, arm, or legs, okay?" The big, scarred one said first. "One, two… three!"

They all pulled their hardest, and Pete's shoulder was instantly dislocated. _OUCH… they're going to get the knees next… ergh! The neck! Don't break the neck! Then I'll be fair game… _Pete glanced out of one eye at Brandon, who was slowly but surely making his way down the warehouse wall.

Just before his knees were about to pop out of place, the Baron behind Pete was brought to the ground by yet another electric net. Pete got quickly away from the other two. And with a well-placed hit to his damaged shoulder with his good hand, his joint was popped back into place. "You are SO going to be punished for that!" He took two stakes out of the pocket of his dark red cords and staked the two surprised henchmen.

The hulking, face-scarred henchman began to get the power-surged net off of himself for the second time in two minutes. Pete walked over and kicked him in the neck hard, snapping it. "I'll take care of _you_ later when I get more stakes."

"Ugh…" Patrick was on all fours with a net gun in one of his hands.

"It's hard to get shocked when you're not a vampire. Need help?" Pete stuck out his hand to Patrick.

Patrick shook his head at the helping hand. "No, no thanks, that's okay… I think I'll just… stay down for a while…" Patrick flopped back down and pulled his black cap over his eyes.

"Yyyeeeah… you just pass out for a round. I can handle Brandon for a while." Pete cracked his knuckles and turned around to face Brandon, who had safely made his way down.

"First hit will be MINE!" Brandon suddenly dashed towards Pete and he did the same in response. Once they reached near each other, they both punched… and hit each other's fists.

Both surprised, they reeled back and jumped forward again. This time, they grabbed each other's hands and both vampires attempted to push the other backwards off their feet. Growling, Pete pushed Brandon backwards, and growling back, Brandon shoved Pete back with equal strength. Pete planted his foot behind himself to steady his pose.

They let go of each other again. Pete jumped straight backward and Brandon did a couple of back flips away. They ran towards each other again, fists pulled back in preparation.

"This one is-" Pete smiled.

"-all mine!" Brandon smiled back.

With two loud 'thwacks', Brandon and Pete both punched each other in the face and went flying away from their hit point about five feet each.

"EW! We're not equals! ARE WE?!" Brandon shouted.

"HELL NO!" Pete jumped back up and Brandon copied him. _He's good,_ Pete thought. _I have to do something I wouldn't expect me to do. Otherwise he'll expect it… I think?

* * *

_

Pete reached into his pocket for a stake. _Oh man, this better work…_

Andrew ducked down, just evading Gabe's rapier, and countered. He impaled Gabe through the knee, but Gabe barely winced as he punched Andrew loose. Andrew rolled to his feet, and jumped back to avoid being stabbed in the heart himself by Gabe's ruthless berserker advance. _Oh crap,_ Andrew thought as a problem suddenly occurred to him. _I lost sight of the girl!_ "You're pretty good," Andrew admitted as he parried seven jabs by Gabe in three seconds.

"So are you," Gabe laughed. "Best fight I've had in months. But you're still learning." Gabe jumped straight up into the air, nearly scraping the high ceiling. "And you won't be able to finish learning with a sword snug in your brain!"

"What makes you think I won't just get out of the way?" Andrew asked. Elisa snuck up from behind him and grabbed his arms.

"This, of course!"

"Uh-oh…" As Gabe began to fall, Andrew panicked and pressed random buttons on his rapier. Suddenly, a sickeningly sweet voice came out.

"Today is brought to you by the letter 'S'!"

"What?" Elisa was so surprised, she loosened her grip. Andrew burst free, and Gabe landed between the two of them, quickly turning to face Andrew.

"Now I'll take you guys down!" Andrew yelled as he brandished his rapier, which added, "And the number '7'!"

"Okay, bring it!" Elisa yelled. She pulled her rapier out and pointed it forward. Gabe also pulled his forward, lining it up right next to Elisa's (Gabe was left-handed). They then dropped into a mirror stance and began stabbing rapidly at Andrew in a rain of sword-based pain.

"Ah!" Andrew was pushed back toward the wall by the onslaught of blows. "NOT COOL!" When his back touched the stone wall, it swung around. Andrew was pulled along by the back of the spinning hidden wall section, and it smacked Gabe in the face as it spun, knocking him down. Andrew was dropped off by the wall… in the same spot he had started in. He came out with a yell, making an upward slice at Elisa. She teleported out of the way, and came up on one side of him.

"HAH!" She got ready to counterattack, but Gabe had gotten up on Andrew's other side and lunged forward. Andrew saw the attack coming and jumped out of the way, but Gabe kept going and rammed his rapier into the next available target… Elisa's chest, specifically her heart.

They all stared at Gabe's rapier (actually Andrew's good _silver_ rapier) sticking out of Elisa's chest, which quickly began to burn. She looked up at Gabe, her face a mask of rage. She stepped forward, deeper into the rapier, and smacked Gabe in the face, leaving a red handprint. She then immediately disintegrated, causing both rapiers to clatter to the ground.

"Elisa?" Gabe asked blankly.

"SWEEEEET!" Andrew grabbed his silver rapier in his free hand. "I got my _good rapier_ back!" He pointed both rapiers at Gabe. "You are going down so fast it'll knock your socks off!"

"I'll get… me for that!" Gabe replied, picking up his former partner's rapier and wiping the confused expression off his face.

"Not if I get you first!" Andrew began to slash at Gabe with both rapiers as fast as hard as he could. As he predicted, Gabe wasn't used to fending off a dual-weapon-wielding opponent without backup. As good as he was, and as hard as he tried, Gabe was kept firmly on the defensive. Finally, he was backed up against one of the room's support pillars, forced to place his off-hand near the tip of the rapier and block dual-handed. Andrew reared back for a split-second, then stabbed forward with both blades. When Gabe blocked both swords with Elisa's, it was too much stress for the blade, which shattered, spraying Gabe's face with sword fragments.

"Not again!" Gabe sputtered, wiping his bloody face with his hand. He looked at Andrew standing in front of him, both blades at the ready. "Well? You going to finish me or not?"

"Oh, right!" Andrew whipped his blades forward, slashing Gabe's throat with his gadget-laden sword as he staked him with the silver rapier.

As Gabe disintegrated, he held out Elisa's broken sword and dropped it. "I guess you were just better than us," he said. His throat cut, his voice was a mere whisper. "I know when I'm beaten." Then he was gone, only Elisa's broken blade sticking handle-up out of the stone floor and the various wounds messing up Andrew's tattoos suggesting they had even been there.

Andrew looked at where Gabe had been, where Elisa had been, and the sword. "Okay then. I wonder how Joe's doing."

* * *

_I AM NOT DOING OKAY RIGHT ABOUT NOW! _Joe thought. Fighting off Gerard's entire band was harder than he thought. 

"Ha! We knew we could beat you eventually!" Mikey teased.

Joe got up off of his knees. "You haven't beaten me yet!" _Okay, this a torture dungeon type place, and I could tell from what Andrew is doing is that this place is loaded with-_

"TRAPS!" Andrew shouted. Joe turned around to see Andrew running their way and yelling to Joe. But then, Joe was knocked about ten feet back by a hard kick to his face.

"Don't turn away form your opponent!" Gerard shouted at him.

Andrew ran over to help Joe up. "I said this place has tons of booby traps. Step on something or push something! I even saw a spinning wall and a flying log!"

"It's worth a shot!" Joe wiped his mouth, got up, and looked around for a possible trap. _AHA!_

Just when Gerard ran up to him, Joe jumped out of the way and to the closest wall. "I wouldn't stand near me now, Gerard! Especially since I just activated a TRAP!" Joe pulled a gold knob on a decorative, bat-shaped motif on the stone wall.

Gerard's eyes widened. He couldn't remember what that particular ornament did, but he knew the booby traps in The Baron's torture chambers were intricate. Gerard ducked down and grabbed his head.

Mikey ran up to Gerard. "Hey, what the hell are you-" Mikey was interrupted by the tile under him jumping up, spring-loaded, and catapulting Mikey into the ceiling, where he stuck.

As Mikey shouted in anger and tried to free his head from the ceiling, Gerard stood up. "You know Vigilante Boy, I wouldn't recommend you go button-happy. You have no idea what most of traps in here do, and neither do I."

Mikey freed himself and plummeted to the floor, his face covered in dust, plaster, and other things from the ceiling. "Yeah. Gerard knows what he's talking about. The traps here are totally-"

"What does this button do?" Andrew pressed a big black button next to a couple of racks used for stretching bodies beyond their normal limits. Out of the farthest wall away from all the fighters, a space in the wall opened up. There was a creak, and then a humongous wood and metal wheel that was completely on fire went rolling across the room.

Gerard flinched in shock and his eyes widened even more than before. "WHAT-"

Joe's mouth dropped and he gasped. "THE-"

Ray almost fell down in surprise when he jumped away. "FUCK?!"

Practically roaring, the ignited wheel came ripping down the room.

Bob looked at Gerard, who was too shocked to move. "Whoa! Gerard! You should think about-"

The wheel struck down Gerard and continued its path across the chamber.

"I was going to say you should think about moving, but never mind!" Bob called out to Gerard.

"That was your fault!" Frank pointed accusingly at Andrew. "We'll kill you!"

"Uh-oh!" Andrew looked in fear at the advancing, extremely pissed off vampires coming his and Joe's way.

Andrew held one of his two rapiers in front of Joe in a 'stand back, citizen!' sort of way. "You're a lot more injured than I am! Let me take care of these guys with my NEW sword style!"

Joe rolled his eyes at Andrew's noble attitude and crossed his arms. "New sword style? Oh, _do_ enlighten me, Super-Vegan."

Andrew ignored Joe's ripping sarcasm. "_Double_ sword fighting style!"

Joe finally raised an eyebrow in interest. "Whoa… okay. Good, I'll just rest." Joe took a seat at the wall and sat back to watch the fight.

"HAH!" Andrew jumped forward with his two rapiers, fast enough to surprise the other vamps. He stabbed Bob and Ray each in one of their arms.

"AGH! OW!" Ray pulled his arm off the rapier.

Bob, remaining calm, realized the rapier was deep enough that if he wanted to, _he _could be doing the pulling here. Bob yanked his arm towards him, making his wound deeper. However, Andrew was thrust forward as well to meet Bob's fist. Bob then kicked Andrew out of his arm.

Andrew's face stopped sliding on the stone floor right in front of Joe's feet. "Urgh… you had trouble?"

"And they're not even going at you all at once!" Joe shook his head.

"Well, I'm not done yet!" Andrew jumped back and went back into the 'battlefield' again.

Joe sighed. _I can't sit back and watch them make Andrew Kabobs! I need to find another one of those traps without being totally obvious or noticeable to them… _Joe craned his neck around, looking for a trap. _There are none within five feet of me! Are there any within ten?! _Joe looked at his surroundings more. Andrew shouted in pain when he was kicked onto the floor again and the others laughed. Joe sighed and grimaced as he watched Andrew struggle to get up again. Joe jumped up. _Oh, SCREW being unnoticeable!_

The other vamps looked up when Joe ran across the room screaming at the top of his lungs toward what was presumed to be another trap activator.

They ran after Joe, but he already had a good fifteen feet across the long dungeon on them. Joe finally reached the wall another thirty feet back and yanked on a big rod sticking out of the wall. There were rope nooses on it used for hanging (a terrible punishment, considering a vampire could suffer through days or weeks of the pattern of dying from choking and coming back to life only to expire all over again).

Joe yanked the rusted, thick metal rod out of the wall. It fell to the floor with a clunk.

Fifteen feet away from Joe, Gerard's gang stopped, waiting for something bad to happen. After about thirty seconds, still nothing had happened and the vampires laughed at Joe.

"It was just a rod! Just a rusty, old rod, you idiot!" Ray said to Joe, laughing.

Joe looked at the floor, not hiding his disappointment.

"You think you're smart? Well, obviously not!" Frank and the rest of them all simultaneously took a step forward. The second they stepped back down, the floor underneath them opened up at least five feet all around them. The four plummeted into a dark pit, still shocked speechless and unable to even scream.

Joe made a face as he heard four sounds that resembled crosses between 'splat', 'scrunch', and 'thwack'.

The newly half-recovered Gerard ran over. A bit of his hair was singed, and his nice black-and-gold outfit was mostly burned. His face had minor burns and his hands were the worst; blistered and red. "HEY!"

Joe stared as Gerard crouched down near the edge of the pit. "Guys? GUYS!"

"Whoaaa…" Andrew strolled over.

"Can anyone hear me?" Gerard's face was part shocked, part worried, and had just a hint of fury. "Are you dead? Like, FOR REAL dead? Staked dead?"

"Yesss…" A weak voice called out.

"Mikey? Is that you? How are the others?"

"We're all punctured! There are spikes at the bottom! SILVER or something! Because I'm pretty sure the other guys are disintegrating… I can't turn my head all that well, but-"

"OOOHHH-…. THAT-…" Gerard, unable to form a sentence to express his feelings. He instead clutched his head in his arms and let out a growl-scream.

"Its okay, Gerard! I might be able to… walk! One of my legs isn't punctured…" Mikey sounded like he was lifting himself up. "I… OH SHIT! Now my other leg is punctured!"

Gerard sighed and lifted himself up from his crouch, running his fingers through his short, blonde hair. "Well, hang on! I'm going to come down there soon and-"

"Sooner than you think!" Andrew kicked Gerard in the back and Gerard also went hurtling down into the pit.

"ACK!" Gerard cried out. "That was my pancreas!"

"That's for… beating up Joe!" Andrew yelled to Gerard. "OH! And tricking us!"

Joe stared at Andrew.

Andrew shifted uncomfortably. "I… actually feel… kind of guilty about doing that…" He put his hands in the pocket of his dark jeans. "I never surprise people from behind like that…"

"Yeah! How evil and un-Andrew-like!" Joe smiled. "I like it! Let's go home!"

"I wonder what's going on back at the warehouse… hopefully Pete and Patrick haven't gotten into _too_ much trouble!" Andrew laughed.

"WAIT! ARE YOU JUST GOING TO LEAVE US HERE?!" Gerard called out.

"Your voice is cracking again!" Joe replied, laughing. He turned and pulled all the spare stakes off the wall racks he could find, seven in total. Then he walked back over to the pit and dropped all the stakes point-down. He heard a couple more splat-ish sounds. "Are you all finally dead down there?" No response. "I'm going to assume they're dead," Joe said. Andrew nodded and they walked out of the dungeon.

* * *

Sorel wiped his mouth from his umpteenth beer that night. "You girls!" He pointed to Claire and her friends. "Form a human pyramid!" 

Claire narrowed her eyes. "You mean like a cheerleader-style pyramid or like an attack pattern style pyramid we learned in Vampire Defense Class?"

Sorel took a couple of seconds to comprehend what she said. "Uh… the first one!" As the girls piled into a pyramid shape and Claire did a cheer at the top, the other Barons cheered at the spectacle of their youngest members forming a human pyramid. Sorel finished the latest beer bottle and moved on to the next. "This is so awesome… it's like I'm drunk or something!"

"I think you are!" Alicia said.

"No, he's sober!" Braids protested.

"Nooo, the first one is right, I'm totally plastered!" Sorel laughed, finding the whole scene hilarious.

* * *

**Even Sorel has his limit.**


	17. Happy go lucky

**Disclaimer: I do not own the given storyline from this music video. This is a love song in my own way.**

**Hey, question for anyone who can answer it: why does Patrick seem to put himself down so much? It seems so many times when I read a quote from him he's putting himself down; something to the effect of him being fat or ugly. ****This so annoying because he has tons of talent and he's very charming and adorable and doesn't seem to fully realize it yet. And you know what? So what if he isn't the skinniest member of his band, and so what if he never will be. We all still love him! Snaps for Patrick! Snaps for Patrick!**

**Whoa, that turned into quite a rant. Sorry I had to subject you to that. But that's my opinion and I'm sticking to it!**

* * *

"Well? Are you just going to keep me standing here looking like an idiot?" Brandon taunted Pete.

"Maybe," Pete mumbled under his breath. But he grimaced and took out his stake. Looking up, Pete gave Brandon a scowl full of nothing but hate, anger, and the will to fight. And with that face, Pete held out his arms, and said to Brandon: "GIVE ME A HUG, BRANDON!"

"_WHAT?!_" Brandon jumped back when he saw Pete running towards him. "OH MY FREAKIN' GOD! GET AWAY!" Brandon ran as fast he could away from Pete, only prompting Pete to run as fast he could towards Brandon.

"I THINK SOMEBODY NEEDS A HUG!" Pete continued to run after Brandon.

"AAAAAGGHH!" Brandon screamed for his life. "STAY AWAY! YOU PROBABLY HAVE SOME SORT OF BRAIN DISEASE FOR VAMPIRES AND YOU'RE CONTAGIOUS! _STAY AWAY!_"

Pete was actually taking pleasure in Brandon's fear, but he still was scowling just at the content of what he was forcing himself to say to Brandon. "Come on! I want to take you out to a nice sushi dinner, Brandon!"

"_HOLY CRAP, YOU'RE SENILE AT, LIKE, TWENTY-SEVEN!_" Brandon shouted back, still running like a track star with Pete close behind. Brandon was so distracted by the weirdness of the scene that he didn't notice as Pete grabbed a crossbow from the ground as they ran by Patrick.

"Don't run from me! I NEED A HUG!" Pete hollered to Brandon.

"YAAAGH!" Brandon shouted back. "STAY AWAY FROM ME, YOU CRAZY EMO! GO DIE!"

Pete steadied the crossbow at Brandon and suddenly stopped running, only walking towards Brandon slowly while keeping the loaded crossbow straight.

Brandon noticed that Pete stopped, and figured he got tired, still injured from before. "What's the matter? Can't even keep up with me?" Brandon turned around to face Pete. The second he was fully facing Pete, Pete shot the crossbow directly into Brandon's heart, standing only a couple of feet away from him.

"I win," Pete said, looking at Brandon, emotionless.

Brandon's mouth dropped as he looked down at the stake. His chest began to disintegrate from the stake outward. Brandon looked up at Pete, furious.

Pete knitted his eyebrows in confusion. "You're… taking a while… to burn away…?"

Brandon took a stake out of the pocket of his black pants. Within the seconds that he had left, Brandon thrust forward the stake towards Pete.

Pete was too shocked that Brandon could still fight in what little time he had left to fully dodge. He only dodged just in time, in the last second possible before Brandon staked Pete in the heart. The stake caught Pete in the shoulder.

"You're not better than me!" Brandon reached out towards Pete once more before he was gone.

Pete stood in shock. "Huh… he just kept going and going… and then he-…" Pete blinked. "Man, I'm tired… I wonder why…" Pete flopped onto his knees, then on all fours, and then he lay on the ground, passing out. He hadn't even noticed before that he was bleeding from the stake in his shoulder. "This kinda hurts…"

"Huhhh… oh wow… what a weird dream…" Patrick finally woke up and immediately got up. "My fingers are tingly and my toes are numb. But I feel kind of refreshed! Oh, I wonder if Pete killed Brandon!" Patrick took a look around and saw Pete, on the ground, fainted.

Patrick ran towards Pete. "Hey! There's a stake in you!" Patrick inspected the wound. "Oh good, it's just in your shoulder. Wait, bad!" Patrick. "Wait, WORSE! I'm talking to you, you're unconscious; that means I'm talking to myself again! Ugh!"

"Who are you ranting to?" Joe asked Patrick, him and Andrew coming up behind Patrick and Pete.

"Uh… Pete," Patrick blushed.

"Pete looks pretty dead," Andrew pointed to Pete.

"What time is it?" Joe asked.

Patrick took out his cell phone. "One thirty A.M… I wonder where Brandon is…"

"Brandon was here?!" Andrew shouted. He and Joe struck fighting poses.

"Yeah," Patrick nodded. "But I don't know if Pete killed him, or if he's hiding, or if he ran away, or-"

"I killed him," Pete said weakly, almost whispering.

"You did? High five!" Joe crouched down and held his hand out towards Pete. "I killed Gerard and his posse, so I beat you by four! Ha!"

Pete shook his head at the hand. "That's great. I'm not going to high five you; I can't move. And I have no idea why!"

"That would be blood loss!" Patrick pointed to the blood-covered stake he removed from Pete's shoulder.

"Well, I need to go inside and tend to my wounds!" Andrew said. "Who else is coming?"

"Me!" Joe waved his hand in the air. He and Andrew marched towards the warehouse.

"Wait!" Patrick yelled. "Does this mean I have to carry Pete back?"

"We carried him to the warehouse last time he lost a third of his blood! It's your turn!" Joe answered without turning around.

Patrick sighed, walking over to Pete. He bent down and hooked his arms under Pete's, and begun to drag him back to the warehouse.

"You're so lazy! You're dragging me and wearing out my cords!" Pete grumbled. "If you were my luggage carrier I'd have you fired!" Pete was clearly enjoying trying to rile Patrick up.

* * *

"Okay…" Patrick said. "Teamwork attack one!" 

"Righto!" Andrew was standing right next to Pete. Pete held out his hands, and Andrew stepped on them. Then, with a slight grunt, Pete hurled Andrew towards the punching bag about ten feet away. Andrew stuck out his rapier and stabbed the punching bag, then back flipped off of it. "Whoa… that worked after all!" The handle was the only thing sticking out of the punching bag on Andrew's end.

Patrick widened his eyes. "Oh… I can't believe it worked! Teamwork attack two!"

"No! I'm not doing yours!" Pete declared. "Patrick, the ones you made up are all complicated and intricate! We can never remember any of them, and even if we could, we couldn't use them in the heat of battle!"

Joe nodded. "Yeah, it's like…" He pondered a way to best imitate Patrick's technique ideas. "Back flip over Andrew when he does a spinning combo if there are two people attacking Andrew and one attacking me, because the one of his two will get distracted by the spinning, causing a chain reaction between my attacker and Andrew's other that will just slightly tip the world off of its axis, making the tectonic plates-"

"ALRIGHT! I get it!" Patrick interrupted him angrily. "Jeez. But yours are too simple! They're too easy to counter!"

"But there is a such thing as 'too elaborate', you know!" Joe argued.

"There's also something known as 'too simple'!"

"Why don't you both shut the hell up?" Pete broke up the argument. "Let's just move on, for crying out loud!"

"Fine! Do technique three! It's also yours, and it's probably the most stupid!" Patrick shook his head.

"I like it!" Joe protested. "Okay, Pete, this one is you and me, or Patrick and me, but Patrick is being an asshat so you're with me!"

Pete scowled. "I really resent being this part of the combo… just because I'm short…"

"Hurry up!"

"Fine!" Pete stood behind Joe. Andrew, who had been standing off to the side during the argument, came running at Joe with an attack with his rapier.

Just when Andrew got close enough, Joe ducked and Pete came up from behind Joe, jumping over his back and hitting Andrew in the face, yelling "PEEKABO!"

Andrew, even though he was knocked backwards onto his butt, laughed. "I love that!"

"It's completely retarded!" Patrick crossed his arms.

"But it works!" Joe said back. "You're just upset because I'm the tallest!"

"Even so, you can only use it once! The enemy will know how to recognize it after that!"

"Stop being a poor sport, Patrick! Think up some techniques we don't have to study like we're cramming for midterms!"

"It's not my fault you can't-"

"OH just shut the fuck up!" Andrew was the one to stop the fighting this time. "Before you kick each other's asses!"

Pete stood off to the side with his hands in his pockets. "Give it up, Andrew. This training session obviously isn't working for tonight. We're all really-"

"We're fine!" Joe interrupted Pete this time. "Let's just continue and act like this never happened, okay?"

"Nooo, not okay." Pete shook his head but wasn't getting excited. "I can see Pat's about to punch you in the face, and then you're going to punch him back even harder, and then we're all going to have one big-"

"Hey! We all won our fights today! So I think we can get through ONE training session tonight just fine!" Joe continued. "We desperately need to practice our teamwork attacks!"

"Look, I almost lost, okay? Patrick almost got killed, too! And from the looks of you guys when you got back, you didn't-"

"It doesn't surprise me that Patrick almost lost. Did you have to help him?"

"At first I was helping him!" Patrick was visibly insulted and tensed up.

"Joe, stop freakin' interrupting me!" Pete ran his hands through his hair. "All I'm _trying_ to say is that-"

"All _I'm_ trying to say is that we have to continue training! So do you, even if you have all your vampire strength from The Baron!"  
"STOP CUTTING ME OFF!" Pete shouted at Joe, stepping closer to him. "Don't fucking insult me because you're pissed at Patrick! I train with you, you know that! I don't get everything from The Baron! I don't get _anything _from him!"

"You mean besides _all _your powers including that extra special little burny thing?" Joe teased Pete, wanting to anger him even more.

"Wait, so that's what that is?" Andrew finally spoke up from the sidelines. "From The Baron?"

"It's not from The Baron!" Pete insisted, his voice cracking.

"Yeah, it is! He had it, and so do you!" Joe crossed his arms. "Maybe you are becoming like The Baron, and we're like your lieutenants!"

"I'M NOT BECOMING LIKE THE BARON!" Pete shouted in protest.

"PROVE IT!"

With his teeth gritted in rage, Pete followed his first instinct and raised his hand to throw a punch. But Joe grabbed his fist before it shot forward.

"See?! You're just going to attack us! Maybe you would've been better off as his apprentice!"

Patrick, who had been too afraid to step in until now, spoke up in defense of Pete. "Whoa! Joe! You're _way_ out of line here! Besides, The Baron would've whooped your ass _way_ harder than one punch!"

Andrew just sighed and looked up at the poorly lit ceiling.

"Maybe…" Pete mumbled after a long pause.

"Huh?" Patrick said. Everyone else in the room turned to look at Pete. He didn't say anything, and after another fifteen second pause or so, Pete didn't talk, but he sniffed and wiped his eyes with his hoodie's sleeve.

"WHOOOAAA…" Joe stepped away from Pete. "Are you crying?! Because that is seriously not… ugh… don't cry… I'm sorry…"

"I'm not crying. Who's crying? Are you crying?" Pete insisted. He raised his head again, but let his hair fall over his eyes. "That's what I thought. It's three A.M… let's get something to eat or watch TV."

"Surrre…" Andrew didn't get up, though. Everyone continued to stare at Pete.

"Would you all stop staring at me like I have a wonky eye?!" Pete said.

"Sorry…" Patrick said.

Then, Andrew got up and simply walked out of the room. Patrick quickly followed. Then, seconds later, Joe and Pete followed, and they all kept silent.

* * *

"HOLY..." Sorel started, then contorted his face into a scowl. "No, I hate holiness… this sucks! I'm running out of lieutenants!" He looked up at the messenger. "Well, what are you looking at? Get out of here!" The bleached-blond teen boy ran away. 

Sorel rubbed his left temple. _Shit, now I'm really in a hard place… looking back, it was a mistake to kill that blue-haired girl because now I don't have ANYONE! Who's left now?_

Sorel looked over at the rest of his gang. Claire climbed out of her toppled-over pyramid and noticed Sorel staring. "What do you need, sir?"

"I'm thinking. I need QUIET!"

Just like that, every conversing, half-drunken gang member fell silent.

"Now what?" Sorel pondered. "I guess we'll have to skip to Plan 'W'."

* * *

**Is that the first time I've ever had Pete cry in this fic? Not counting flashbacks. Did I even make him cry in flashbacks? Huh...**

**Wow, this fic is actually getting very close to the final fight scene! **


	18. Follow the Leader

**Disclaimer: I own little used within. I do not own the video. Disclaimer is as disclaimer does.**

**I haven't updated this fic in a while. And to be honest, I rarely do that with this fic. I apologize.**

**However, I will make my greatest effort to put my next chapter up sooner than this one was posted.**

**This chapter has flashbacks... INTRODUCING... DIRTY! Yay, Dirty!**

_

* * *

_

_"Now repeat after me!" The tipsy, frazzle-haired man said in front of four young boys. "We now live by Dirty's rules."_

_All he got was stony, scowling silence in return._

_"I said, 'We now live by Dirty's rules'!"_

_"Are you drunk?" Patrick asked._

_"That doesn't sound like… whatever. Please don't scowl at me all day every day, you guys," The man stood up straight for a minute and used a slightly more sobered tone. "Look, I'm sorry your parents left you. If I would have known I was gonna be stuck with a bunch of kids in a newly-vampire-infested town, I would have started teaching you basic self-defense a looong time ago."_

_Joe finally looked enthusiastic. "Can we __not__ go to school?"_

_"No,"_

_"Why not?"_

_"I can't deal with you all day." Dirty sighed. "Will you like me if I let you stay home?"_

_Joe's face was blank. "Nope."_

_"Then there's no real point anyway!"_

_"This sucks. I'm going out!" Pete got up off the beat-up stool and turned on his heels as the other three boys watched him in amazement._

_"Whoa-whoa-whoa, short stuff." Dirty called out after him. "I wouldn't go out there if I were you!"_

_"Why not?" Pete answered defiantly._

_"It's dark out. Vampires will eat you. Also, you're seven. If you're not eaten by the new vampires, you'll be eaten by dogs."_

_"Maybe I will anyway!" Pete answered. He was obviously just testing his new caretaker._

_"Fine. Have fun."_

_"Really?"_

_"No, not really! Get your ass back in here before I skin you in all my half-drunk fury!" Dirty waved his empty beer bottle at Pete._

_Patrick turned to Dirty and pointed at him accusingly. "You said the 'A' word!"_

_"Ass, ass, aaaasssssss!" Joe teased Patrick. Patrick looked horrified, shocked, afraid, and impressed by this._

_"YES!" Dirty saluted Joe. "Now I have to explain to you all the rules of Dirty's House. If you will all take your seats…"_

_"I won't take my seat because I'm leaving! NYYYAH!" Pete opened the rusted, metal front door threateningly and stuck his tongue out._

_"No, you aren't!" The man cheerfully responded. He marched over, grabbed Pete by the waistband of his dirty jeans (simultaneously giving him a wedgie), and plopped him back into his beat-up stool._

_"Rule One: Swearing is accepted!" Dirty smiled._

_"WOO-HOO!" Andrew thrust his non-tattooed fists into the air._

_"Fucking ass, bitch!" Joe did the same. Patrick, still new to this concept, looked even more shocked at the swearing._

_"Rule Two: You still have to brush your teeth and bathe. You'll never pick up chicks if you stink."_

_He got a chorus of, "Awww…"_

_"Rule Three: You must train every day!"_

_"'Train'? Like how?" Andrew raised an eyebrow._

_"I'll show you later! You have to learn how to how fight in a newly vampire-infested town."_

_"My mom said-" Patrick began ,but he was interrupted._

_"Your mom ain't here anymore!" Dirty put forth._

_"I already KNOW that!" Patrick shouted, hurt, and looking suddenly saddened._

_"OH SHIT! Don't CRY! I don't know how to handle that! I'm new at parenting!" Dirty jumped up frantically and looked around the room. "Uh… uh… look! A Grateful Dead record!" He handed an album with a colorful skull motif on the cover to Patrick._

_"I'm okay now!" Patrick smiled._

_"Good for you! NOW! We need to find out what skill I'll be training you!" Dirty stayed standing up. "YOU! Pete! What are you good at?"_

_"When I went to kindergarten, the teacher said I could throw blocks across the room farther than anyone else. And at school, in dodgeball, I hit a fifth-grader with the ball and he had to go to the nurse!" Pete was clearly proud of his accomplishments._

_"Ah. Cool. And you! Patrick! How about you?" The bushy-haired man turned his attention to Patrick._

_"My teacher likes me best. I always get 'A's!" Patrick smiled. "And I'm best with building stuff."_

_"Alright. Good. How about you, Joemania?" He looked at Joe._

_"I'm JOE!" Joe responded loudly._

_"Yeah, I'm going to call you Joemania. What are you good at?"_

_"THIS!" Joe smiled, got out of his seat, and kicked Dirty hard in the shin._

_"OH! Damn… that… was a hard one." Dirty bent over and rubbed his leg for a few more seconds, and then stood up straight and glanced at Andrew. "And, last but not least, Andy. How about you?"_

_"I-"_

_"Wait, before we begin, I just need to say, you would look great with full-sleeve tattoos, kid!"_

_"Uhhhh, thanks. I'm not really good at anything…"_

_Joe's face lit up. "I know! He waves sticks around! And drums on stuff!"_

_"YEAH!" Andrew jumped up. "And I once stuck a really sharp stick ALL THE WAY into a knothole in a tree."_

_"Then red ants came out…" Patrick bit his nail nervously._

_"Yeah… but it was still cool!"_

_"Theeeennnn go pick out your rooms and put all your stuff away, me hearties, because Dirty's rules are now your life's rules!" Dirty thrust his fist into the air and let out a victory cry. Andrew and Joe did the same. _

_Pete crossed his arms and slouched in his seat. "Wedgies suck…"

* * *

_

"What are you doing?" Joe asked Patrick, who was hard at work at his desk.

Patrick had heavy protective goggles on. "I'm working on a new gun. I haven't made anything in a long time, so-"

"You should try working on the ailing VIGILANTE MOBILE instead."

"Ailing? It's in its death friggin' rattles, Pete! We'll get maybe ten more miles out of it! Car engines aren't made to hit two well-trained vampires at once, there's no way around it! That stunt Brandon pulled could've crippled a school bus! Look, that RV down at Travis's place could be on the road in a week! We should go there and see if he'll still accept cash from us or whatever!"

"But I love the Vigilante Mobile…" Pete whined.

"If you love things, you have to let them go," Andrew said as he came in, looking like he was wearing the shirt of a mummy costume. His entire arms, chest, and back were bandaged totally. "If it loves you back, it'll come back to you. Like my RAPIER!" He pulled out his silver rapier and Joe clapped as he came in. Pete just muttered under his breath.

"Actually, we should go down to Travis's place," Joe said. "I hear they were learning to fight vampires a little, so we should make sure they didn't get themselves killed." Joe had an ice pack strapped to the side of his head.

"That's a good idea," Patrick said. The short-barreled gun he was working on began to clank and rattle on the desk. "I need some fuses and some phosphorous anyway." He grabbed a nearby pair of belts and belted the gun to the desk, causing the whole desk to rattle.

* * *

Sorel paced across the empty parking garage. He was _not_ happy right now. "Let's see how these little self-assigned missions of my lieutenants went, shall we, Barons?" He made a face when he said 'self-assigned'. "Elisa and Gabe? Killed by the one with the rapier. Brandon? Killed by Peter…" 

Sorel paced past the intensely nervous faces of Claire and her clique. The other Barons, of course, were afraid of Sorel's wrath as well, but the bubbly blond and her friends were new to this.

"Let these failures serve as examples to all of you. Now, as I was saying… Gerard and his little group? Killed…" Sorel turned to face Gerard and Mikey, standing awkwardly to the side. "…most of them."

Gerard sighed unsteadily. This was definitely not part of his plan. Coming to Sorel like this, injured severely, and having completely failed in a mission that they did behind their leader's back in the first place! Gerard was sure Sorel would excuse them (at least for the most part) if they had succeeded in killing at least three out of four of the Vigilante twerps, but to gather up so many officers, face them, and lose… _And now Mikey's caught up in the whole situation…_Gerard, his shaking hand on his throbbing head, tried to push the thoughts of whatever punishment awaited them out of his head.

Now Sorel had completely turned his attention to the two young vampires in front of him. "Let's look at you two now… you've changed out of your punctured, blood-covered clothes, your countless wounds have healed… rather nicely, I may add!" Sorel had his hands behind his back. Though his posture was rigid, Sorel's face was tranquil and cheerful, pulled into a genuine-looking smile that reached up to his eyes. "You two are my last-living lieutenants…" Sorel's eyes darkened and his smile disappeared. "But you're still complete FAILURES! Gerard, I am extremely disappointed in you. I thought you were the smartest of my lieutenants. Not only that, but I was under the impression that you were just a smart guy in general!"

Gerard took a quick, hopeful breath. Sorel said he was 'disappointed'… Gerard may have seen Sorel angrier than this before… and Sorel did just give him a compliment… maybe with a little charisma, and a little extra effort on the battlefield later, this could easily become a thing of the past. "Sir… please. This was a mission made mainly to please you. We believed in could be easier to take down to Pete if we took down at least two friends first… Brandon acted separately from us." Looking back, Gerard admitted mentally that he _did _bait Brandon to go after Pete, more in private than in front of Sorel. _But those who are staked can't defend themselves… _"In fact, if I had known-"

"Oh, shut up!" Sorel spat. Gerard recoiled. "I'm not just disappointed, like a parent with a report card, you little smart ass! I'm EXTREMELY PISSED!"

Mikey and Gerard shrank back. "What're you gonna do?" Mikey pathetically squeaked. Normally, Gerard would've elbowed him for acting so obviously afraid, but Gerard was also scared out of his mind.

"I'm going to…" Sorel bared his teeth. "I'm going to… toooo… decide later!" he whipped around, leaving two dazed and confused lieutenants in his wake.

Claire let out a deep breath and put her smile back on. "Now what are we going to be up to, sir?"

Sorel shook his head and looked tired. "I've just about had enough of this town and enough of these little do-gooders! We're milked this town for all it's worth; it's beginning to run out of beer. TOMORROW we kill those stupid little vigilantes!"

Claire's eyes widened in shock as the other Barons cheered. "WAIT! You're being SERIOUS about that?! Like really real?! You want to kill Pete?" She cocked her head. "Why?!"

"Because he-…" Sorel paused, searching for a good reason. He didn't need a legitimately good reason, he needed something to shut Claire up. "He kicks puppies."

Claire made a frown. "How **terrible**."

"Damn straight."

* * *

**Next chapter INTRODUCING: The Junk Yard Heroes! And I must say, thanks to an anonymous reviewer who tipped me off to something I haven't even seriously realized before... the vigilantes have no REAL allies! Just (mostly) enemies! Anyway, I took the tip and created some buddies for them.**

**Plus, the final fight scene starts next chapter.**

**This installment of the series will be lasting aboooouuut... hm... oh, I don't know, three more chapters or so? When it's over, I'll take a break, then get started on the third installment. **

**My cowriter and I already have a good amount of it planned out. I have new characters, a basic plot, ways to tie up and loose ends of most of the characters already, and even some details. The only big thing I don't have is an ending. I'm thinking... alternate ending, maybe? Meh. I have plenty of time.**


	19. Scrap

**Disclaimer: I own little within. I do not regret the things I have done, but those I did not do.**

**Final fight scene. Ew. Ehm. Geeeee. **

**I would predict the fic's last chapter iiisss... twenty-two, I think.**

* * *

"Helloooo?" Andrew called out. "Is anyone here or have you all died?"

"Maybe they went out," Patrick looked around at the junkyard. It was full of what was trash to some eyes and treasure to others, and there was a separated, beat-up house off to the side.

"Them? Out? Life? Nahhh," Pete said, glancing at Patrick's new digital watch. It read eight P.M. on the dot.

"Traaaviiiis! Maaaatttt! Disaaaaashiii! And Eriiiiic!" Joe shouted, cupping his hands over his mouth. "We're calling youuu!"

"Agh! We're coming! Jeeeeez…" Out from the house stumbled a tired-looking, tanned young man with wild, poofy hair. He had on a white tee and sweatpants. "What do you want, you guys? Do you have ANY idea what time it is?"

Patrick knitted his eyebrows in confusion. "Uh… yyyeah, it's eight P.M. Actually, it's 8:01."

He looked at Patrick in confusion. The man rubbed his eyes and then took another look around, realizing it was dark out. "OH! YEAH! Holy shit! I thought when I checked the little clock near my bed it said 7:45 _A.M._! Yeah… yeah, that's what it said! A.M.! And I thought I could sleep some more!"

"You… must've set it wrong, Travis…" Patrick said quietly. "Again…"

"Ohhh. Ohhh. Ohhh-kay." He shook his head about, and then retreated back into the house for a minute. When he came out, he had on a bright, distracting, and blue-and-yellow pattern hoodie. "What can I do ya for?"

"We need to rummage," Joe said.

"Feel free…" Travis watched as they split into four different directions and started picking through the piles of rusted metal and other assorted pieces. "Why are you guys out at eight?"

"We have something to do after this," Andrew answered after digging his head out from under what looked like a life-size car made only of sheet metal.

"Hey! I've been working on that car-like creation for days! Don't you touch it!" Travis complained to Andrew.

"What's all the RUCKUS?" Another guy with messy brown hair came out to see what was keeping him from sleep.

"Hey, Matt. You may as well go wake the other guys." Travis sighed. "We overslept by about ten hours."

Matt paused, blinking. He was still sleepy and had trouble comprehending. Finally, after a long pause, he said, "What?"

As Travis explained what had happened in further detail, Andrew turned his attention back to rummaging. "Hey, Travis, how much is this?" He held up a can opener.

"Everything is two dollars," Travis responded without looking up, sounding bored.

"Well, what about that doohickey over there with the-"

"EVERYTHING is two dollars."

"Gotcha." He stared at the aluminum thing, which was giving off a faint glow.

"Soooo, why are you all here?" Matt asked.

"They've got some personal issues," Travis answered.

"Personal issues? It sounds like you've got PMS."

"Actually, we were just leaving…" Patrick said, stepping away from the multiple piles of junk.

"Why? I like hanging here!" Joe had made a lounge chair for himself out of tires, a taken apart washing machine, and a refrigerator door.

"We have that thing to do?" Pete said, glancing over at Travis.

The wild-haired man was busy sorting different types of tools on a table in front of the house. In the junkyard, they had set aside tables for specific needs, such as a car parts table, tools, bonfire material, and furniture from the Sixties. Travis rolled his eyes without looking at Pete. "You know? The thing… with the stuff… and the people… or the other things…" He mocked Pete.

"Ha ha," Pete jumped off of the top of a van and near the exit of the junkyard. "We have to go. See you later." Due to his abrupt leave, the other vigilantes scrambled to get out of the pile and went after him.

"Wait, what? Where am I? Where are you? _Who_ are you? Huhhh?" Another man stepped out of house. He was a dark-skinned man with a lopsided cap on.

"Hi, Disashi! Bye, Disashi!" Andrew ran out.

"'Bye, Disashi'?" The last guy stepped out. "Where are you going, D?"

"No, not me, Eric. They just… Pete and Patrick and Joe and Andy just- why is it so dark out?" Disashi looked around, puzzled.

"We overslept," Matt answered.

"Okay…"

Sorel watched as Andrew glanced around nervously one last time before they left. "Perfect. They're heading to the graveyard. Fitting, since it'll be where they all meet their death." He turned to four of his few remaining Barons. These were the some of the toughest ones who hadn't qualified as lieutenants, and he was pretty sure he could rely on them. The first was a huge man with a huge greatsword, fully seven feet long. The second was an angry-looking girl, also tall, with an equally large pole-axe. A big handle and a bigger axe head. The third was a small guy with a pair of daggers in his hands. He was wearing so many more daggers that his jacket may as well have been constructed entirely of dagger-sheathes. The final one was another smaller man, who never stopped grinning like an idiot. He had a bunch of facial scars that made his grin pretty creepy, and his weapon was unusual at best: a walking stick with a classic crooked handle. "Isn't that the cane Vulcan had when he first joined The Dandies?" Sorel asked.

The grinning man shrugged. "Maybe. I found it."

"Where?"

"I DIDN'T RAID THE BARON'S BEDROOM!"

Sorel waved his hand dismissively. "Whatever. You four are going to kill these fools in the scrapyard. You get off easy tonight. The rest of us will follow Pete and the boys down to the cemetery… and kill them."

"Yessir!" The greatsword-wielder said, snapping to attention in a way that suggested formal military training. "Uh… Sorel?"

"What?"

"If we wrap up early, can we go raid a neighborhood?"

"Sure. We could use new recruits." Sorel turned, and the remainder of his followers, Gerard, Mikey, Claire and her friends, and two or three more nameless Barons, followed him out, leaving the four to their assassination. They watched as Travis and his friends lit a campfire and began to cook something.

"Let's eat," the dagger man said, his sinister grin revealing fangs. He tossed his daggers, and they landed in the campfire, knocking sparks and firewood everywhere. Travis, Eric, and Disashi bolted, and Matt grabbed a long stick that was burning on one end. "Haa!" the dagger wielding vampire shouted, jumping toward Matt with another dagger drawn. Matt knocked him back with the burning stick. The vampire landed on his free hand, and backflipped to a standing position. He then threw six daggers at Matt in quick succession, but Matt parried or dodged every one of them. _Maybe this won't be as easy as we assumed._

The swordsman paired up against Travis, who was in front of the shed. He brought his sword down, but Travis blocked with a pair of metal plates he was wearing, one strapped to each forearm. Travis pushed the huge sword away and kicked the vampire in the chest, barely making him flinch. "Whoa! That sword's huge," Travis observed. "How do you lift it?"

The swordsvamp grinned. "Thanks to these fangs…" He spun around, lifting the sword as he did so, "…Very easily." Travis ducked just as his opponent swung the sword at neck level. Although the blade failed to behead more than some of Travis's hair, it carved a deep gash in the front wall of the shack. Travis growled and tackled the vampire, pushing him slowly backward and keeping him from using his sword properly.

Disashi kicked his own grinning vampiric opponent back, and rummaged through the stuff in the nearest junk pile. "Here's something that'll work." He procured a four-foot long metal pole and brought it clashing against the vampire's wooden cane. They pushed for a second, and Disashi began to push his opponent back in the mud. The cane-wielding vampire groaned and used a judo throw to toss Disashi over his shoulder. Disashi rolled to his feet, laughing. "Not bad, fangs!" He swung the metal pole high, and his grinning opponent ducked under it and used his crook to pull Disashi's leg out from under him. "Uh-oh," Disashi muttered, down in the mud with a grinning vampire standing over him.

"Don't hurt me!" Eric yelled, clambering up the tallest junk pile, the female vampire following at a leisurely pace.

"Oh, it won't hurt if you hold still," she muttered, swinging at him whenever she got close enough. She only succeeded on chopping a life-size statue of a clown in half at the waste, however.

"It's around here somewhere…" Eric climbed nearly to the top of the mound and began tossing stuff down the junk pile toward the girl. She growled and knocked away a few tin cans, but was smashed in the head by a ceiling lamp.

"Hey!" she roared. "Watch it!" She deflected a large coffee tin full of opossums with her axe, and slammed a computer monitor back upwards at Eric, nearly catching him in the side of the head.

"Enough, kid!" The dagger vampire growled. "I'm killin' you now!" He ran toward Matt, slashing, but Matt dodged the daggers and leapt back onto a worktable.

"Time to show you what a good kill looks like!" Matt jumped off the worktable and plunged his flaming stick into and through the vampire's chest with his own weight and momentum. The vampire gasped and pulled at the stick, not noticing that several inches were poking out of his back… and still on fire. Matt yanked the stick sideways, and it broke. He then whacked his vampiric foe in the head with his part of the stick, and the dagger man stumbled back into the worktable set aside for fireworks, which the flaming stick immediately set off. The resulting explosion immediately knocked the vampire unconscious, and Matt grabbed a stake from the nearest table and plunged it into the bloodsucker's chest. "Now THAT'S a good kill."

"Yah!" Travis was pushed back, and only a quick forearm block kept him from being bisected down the middle by that massive greatsword. "This'll give me nightmares!" He leapt up as the swordsvamp swept low with his blade, and drop-kicked him in the face. The vampire landed in the open door of a refrigerator, and jumped out, snarling. Travis dug a pair of stakes out of his pocket and threw them. The vampire smoothly used his sword to block both stakes, but Travis had already darted forward with a third stake. The vampire thrusted the massive blade forward, and Travis dodged under it and stabbed. Unfortunately, due to dodging the blade, he had only managed to get the swordsvamp's stomach. The guy smashed Travis in the skull with the flat of his blade, knocking him away, and pulled the stake out.

Disashi rolled away from a cleated boot crashing down where his face had been, and stabbed upward with his pole, which he had just noticed had a jagged end. By luck, he caught the vampire in the eye. The scarred vampire jumped back and screamed, his eerie Cheshire-cat grin finally gone. He pulled the pole from his ruined eye and growled, staring down Disashi with his remaining peeper. "You'll burn for that!" He thrusted forward with the cane, and caught Disashi in the gut, doubling him over in pain. He then attempted to knee Disashi in the face, but Disashi caught his leg and swung it around, throwing his opponent. Disashi then reached into a nearby junk pile, pulled out a dull knife, and threw it, gashing his formerly grinning opponent's shoulder as he got up.

"EEEP!" Eric pulled his foot up to avoid it being chopped off by a mad axe-wielding vampiress. "C'mon, c'mon… FOUND IT!" He pulled a rocket-propelled grenade from the junk pile. "Good thing I remembered where I buried it," he said, aiming it at the shocked vampires.

"A gre-fucking-nade launcher?!" The girl yelled. "Seriously?!"

"Yes." Eric jumped backward and launched the grenade. The force of the explosion blew him backward onto the next junk pile over. Although the girl hadn't been formally slain, it didn't matter; her entire torso had been shredded by the explosion, and her limbs and head were a fair distance apart.

The swordsvamp growled, assessing the situation, and turned to his now-cycloptic friend. "C'mon, we aren't winning this one! Let's scramble!" His buddy nodded and they ran out of the junkyard.

Eric clambered down from the smaller junk pile he had landed on. "Yay! We won!"

"We are the Junk Yard Heroes!" Travis shouted.

Matt turned back to the fire and began to fix it. "This calls for breakfast-dinner!"

* * *

"…And so, yeah, I'm done talking to you, because it sounds like I'm talking to myself." Joe finished. He stood over Dirty's grave in the cemetery, with Pete, Patrick, and Andrew behind him. The cemetery was like most stereotypical cemeteries, spooky, lonely, and the air was thick with silence. There were more graves for the town than the average-sized graveyard could hold. The plots were messy and sloppily done, as few were dug and buried by professionals.

"Here's to you." Pete stood over the grave and poured a bottle of red wine over the grave. The hood on his tight, navy blue hoodie was pulled over his eyes, despite it being nighttime.

"Do we go home now?" Andrew asked, with his hands in his jeans.

"I guess we have nothing else to do," Pete answered.

"Oh, believe me, boys… you have plenty to do…" Sorel hissed from behind them. "Or rather, _I_ do."

"Uh-…oh…" Patrick murmured.

"'Uh-oh' is right." Sorel smiled.

Joe looked at Claire. "_Claire_! What're you doing?! Get outta here!"

"No!" She stuck her tongue out at him and put one hand on her hip defiantly. The other was holding a baseball bat.

"What do you mean 'no'?!"

"I have business to take care of, too!"

Sorel laughed. "Face it. There is no running this time. And there is no loser who lives. You die here tonight."

Pete glanced nervously at the others, then back at Sorel. "We can't fight you yet."

"Wrong answer. Not only are you able to, but you most certainly will. Now." Sorel stretched out his arm and raised his hand. Dirty's tombstone was lifted into the air.

"Ohhh, you better noooot…" Joe obviously knew what Sorel had planned before he laughed and threw the grave with all his might into the small cement shed in the graveyard. The headstone smashed, most of it turning to rubble. The three anonymous Barons that Sorel had brought along cackled.

Patrick's mouth dropped and he pointed to the pile of rubble. "AHHH… AHHH…!"

"Oh. No. You. Did. NOT. Just. Do. That." Andrew stared in disbelief.

Alicia giggled. "Heh heh, 'oh no you DI-NT'!" she imitated Andrew. Claire and her friends laughed.

"WAIT A SECOND. GERARD?! MIKEY?!" Joe pointed at them.

"You bet your afro-ed ass it's us!" Mikey jiggled his spiked Morningstar threateningly. Gerard just deepened his scowl.

"Begin." Sorel signaled to his group. Gerard and Mikey immediately began closing in on Joe.

"Ack!" Joe jumped back.

"Go for the short one!" Claire said to her friends, nodding towards Patrick.

"Oh no…" Patrick immediately began rummaging around in his pockets.

"I guess that leaves you and me against these four," Pete said to Andrew.

"Should we even out the odds?" Andrew said. "Or make them odd in our favor, perhaps?"

"Second one," Pete grinned.

One eager biker had already stepped forward. The young man with swished over hair had two small daggers out and ready. Pete grabbed them by their handles and pushed the considerably weaker vampire back, almost off his feet.

"Okay, I can take two," Andrew looked at the two advancing on him. He ducked and stabbed the first one in the heart. "TOO easy!"

"Are you forgetting about my presence?" Sorel sent a telekinetic pulse Andrew's way, knocking his rapiers out of his hands and a good fifteen feet away, where they landed in the dirt.

"Oh damn…" Andrew said weakly.

"Make a run for it or stay and fight me without your weapon," Sorel quickly said, summarizing Andrew's choices for him.

"But… I'm not good at hand-to-hand combat!" Andrew stared longingly at his rapier.

Just when Andrew was about make a mad dash for it, Sorel held him telekinetically in place. "Not good at it, you say? Oh, than you just made up _my_ mind!"

Andrew furiously convulsed his legs, trying to get them to run. "Damn times two!"

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"Ahhh, hey! Two against one? Is this really fair?" Joe nervously laughed and took a couple of steps back from Gerard and Mikey.

"You seemed to have had us beat last time (or so you thought) with five of us," Gerard smiled and began transforming into a wolf more and more with every step. "This should be downright easy for you!" Once he had fully taken wolf form, Gerard howled and teleported behind Joe (continuing to howl). Then, he teleported to Joe's right, then to his left, and all around the graveyard, as fast as he could. This created a 'surround-sound' effect in the small plot of land.

"What the-?!...Whoa!... Where's the…?" Joe whipped his head around again and again, trying desperately just to pinpoint Gerard's location. Mikey stood obediently still, waiting for Gerard to finish his attack.

Just when Joe was about to panic, the howling stopped and Gerard planted his feet right behind Joe. "Ta-da!" Gerard kicked Joe in the back, making a vicious 'thud' noise.

"And now the finisher!" Mikey lifted his spike-covered Morningstar above his head and almost brought it upon Joe's skull, if he had not rolled away just in time.

"Ugh! All that for nothing!" Gerard scowled. "Do it faster next time!"

"My bad, my bad," With a quick grunt, Mikey pulled the weapon out of the ground, taking large chunks of turf with it. He turned his attention to Joe. "You want to know a secret, human?"

"I love secrets," Joe smiled nervously.

"The spikes on this are poison-tipped… with poison. You won't survive a good hit from it." Mikey smiled as Joe looked at the Morningstar with a new fear.

Gerard crossed his arms. "Unless, of course, you try to bleed out the wound to cleanse your blood of the poison. But since you _are_ human, you can die from losing too much blood… and a good hit from those spikes would already weaken you. So you can see what a tragic mistake that might be."

"Uh…" Joe gulped.

"You know, it's obvious from your nervous swallowing and fearful, shocked expression that you-"

"DON'T START!" Joe held up his hands.

"Alright, fine. Let's just get sweet revenge instead."

"Three cheers for sweet revenge!" Mikey agreed.

* * *

**Scary Gerard.**


	20. Boom

**Disclaimer: I own little within. Fk-a-doodle-doo.**

**Got angst and fighting at the same time! Oh, goody! And look! Sorel figured out how to pull a Sylar (sort of... you know, ripping people with his telekinesis?). Extra credit if you know what I'm talking about.**

**Ew. Ehm. Ef. Gee-cliffhanger.**

* * *

"Girls, girls! Come on! Can we talk about this?" Patrick asked Claire and friends. 

"No!" Noodle swung at him with a baseball hat.

"Well, than you can't blame me for doing this!" Patrick reached in his pockets. "Okay, think fast!" He tossed a garlic grenade at them.

Alicia caught it. "Hey, you know what, this smells like garlic! Is this some kind of anti-vampire weapon or something else that might explode and make me all-" She was cut off by the small explosion. It sent all but Braids and Claire (the two farthest away from the explosion) into a frenzy of coughing, choking, and clutching their noses.

"EW! Now my hair smells like garlic!" Braids ran over to Patrick and began trying to punch him. "I BLAME YOU!"

"ACK!" Patrick desperately ran backwards and almost fell over. He looked up to see Claire's other three friends already recovered, and simply looking angrier at the garlic bomb.

_This is not working. Switch tactics. _"WAIT! Claire! Why are you attacking me?"

"You kick puppies!" She looked near tears.

Patrick made a 'WHAT-the-HELL?!' kind of face. "What… where did-… no I don't!"

"Yes, you do!"

"NO, I DON'T!"

"PUPPY-KICKER!" Claire swung.

"Claire, I swear on my **hats**!" Patrick pleaded.

"Honest?" Claire's expression changed.

"I swear."

"But… Sorel says so!" Claire looked depressed.

"Oh… I get it." Patrick paused. _Ugh… this sucks. They don't want to fight any more than I do. She probably had no idea what she was getting into with the Barons and Sorel. _"Okay, Claire, Braids, Chris, Alicia, Noodle, everybody, I have an idea. You can help me."

"Okay!" Claire hit him on the thigh with the bat.

"WHY'D YOU DO THAT?!" Patrick shouted.

"To look like we're fighting you when we're really plotting against our leader. Plus, you remind me of a stress ball."

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"I hope you don't have any plans for tomorrow," Gerard laughed as he grabbed Joe's kick and spun him into a tree, cracking the bark. "Or any plans at all, really. You aren't going to be living for much longer." He pushed Joe back into the tree and jumped forward. Joe ducked, and Gerard's claws tore deep into the tree. Joe then uppercut Gerard in the wolfen jaw, knocking him back.

"And what if you guys can't beat me?" Joe asked, stopping to catch his breath.

"Oh, don't worry," Mikey assured him as he dropped from the branches of the tree. "We can beat you." He swung the Morningstar forward. A spike sliced into Joe's arm as he dodged, and the metal orb kept going and shattered a branch. Joe kicked Mikey back, trying to get his hurt arm to move properly again. That thing was DANGEROUS!

Gerard howled and slashed at Joe again, just grazing Joe's chest with his claws. He tried to bite down, but Joe threw Gerard back over his shoulder. Mikey swung the Morningstar again, and Joe ducked it again. This time it smashed into the main part of the tree, obliterating some initials that had been carved into it. "HEY! I carved those initials!" Joe kicked Mikey in the knees, and was rewarded with a loud crack.

"EEP!" Mikey stumbled back into a bush.

"Where's Gerard?" Joe wondered aloud, pressing his back to the tree.

"Right behind you, as usual," Gerard replied smoothly, pushing forward on the tree. Already damaged, the tree cracked and fell forward, and Joe barely rolled out of the way to avoid being pinned under it. Joe grabbed a stake from his pocket and threw it at Gerard. Mikey kicked a fallen branch with his good leg, causing him to fall back. The branch flew up and caught the stake on its path toward Gerard, crashing into Joe. "Thanks, Mikey."

"Anytime," Mikey replied as he massaged his leg.

"OW!" Joe got up. Gerard dashed toward him, but Joe kicked Gerard in the face, knocking him back. Joe then ran forward and stomped Gerard back down just as he began to rise. "I'm getting tired of you!" Joe threw Gerard into a gravestone and began punching him. Gerard suddenly teleported behind Joe and grabbed him, pinning Joe's arms to his sides.

"Oh Mikey…" Gerard sang.

"Right!" Mikey got up. "I feel better now! But I confess, Joe, I was kidding. This Morningstar isn't coated in venom." Joe sighed in relief, but stopped when Mikey struck a match. "Just gasoline."

"I have a fun idea!" Sorel smiled cruelly. "Let's play Andrew Pinball!"

"Can we play Whack-A-Vampire instead?" Andrew asked, still forcefully stuck in the air.

Sorel was about to make a mean comment, but took it into thought. "I would love to…" He turned to Pete, who had just staked the last gang vampire. Sorel telekinetically lifted up a tombstone and thrust it over Pete's head when he was turned around.

Pete dropped to his knees and whipped around to see Sorel. And Pete was turning red with anger. "OH, YOU PLAY FAIR! TOO SCARED TO ATTACK ME WHEN I'M NOT LOOKING YOU IN THE EYE?!"

Sorel tossed Andrew to the side, forgetting about Andrew Pinball for a moment. Amongst the Dandies, it was a well-known fact that you could call Sorel stupid, ugly, crazy, cruel, drunk, a cheater in poker, and maybe even weak. But you should never, _ever_ accuse of him of being scared. Fortunately for his well-being in general but unfortunately for the fight in session, Pete was never a Dandy.

"I'm scared? I'M scared? I'm _SCARED_?!" Sorel's teeth were bared.

Pete immediately detected a sense of violence and rage that wasn't there before... a comment about a select few subjects had done the same to him before. He decided to hold off and didn't respond to Sorel but did not back away either.

"LITTLE boy, I will show you fear and misery like you have **never** experienced before."

Pete's furious courage returned. He picked up a shovel by the ugly, box-like, cement shed. "You're forgetting that I was _turned_ by The Baron!" Pete took aim and swung as hard as he could, in a rage. "I KNOW FEAR!"

But even Pete's hardest swing did not throw Sorel off balance. "You're forgetting… I lived with him… and served him… and trained under him." Sorel knocked the sign away. Pete tried to aim a low hit at Sorel, right fist clenched tight. In what seemed like one swift, fluid movement, Sorel used one hand to hit Pete's arm, knocking Pete forward and off balance. Sorel used the palm of his other hand to hit Pete hard in the jaw, sending him back up.

The cruel vampire sneered. "I KNOW MISERY." He didn't wait for Pete to recover and kicked him in the stomach, sending him sliding backwards on the ground. Sorel continued his rant. "Sure, the experience and training I received having been there is like nothing else I could ever have gotten…" Pete noticed a British lilt reforming in Sorel's voice within the last minute or so. "…and if I had to rewind my life and do it all over again, I still would've gone that way." Sorel stepped closer to Pete, but not in a volatile manner. Pete didn't move, frozen in shock from Sorel's sudden change in mood. "You could never understand how I felt! The hideous feeling to be beneath another, always! To have to _serve_ someone else, to carry out their dirty work! I felt so belittled! For all those DECADES! Not only that but when I was just starting out… oh, the punishment new recruits have to endure for the simplest mistakes…" Sorel looked down at Pete, who was still on the ground. "Living BENEATH another… without a choice… that is misery, my boy."

Pete's rage slowly swept through his body again as he stood up to face Sorel, who had a good few inches on him. "I COULDN'T GIVE HALF A CRAP ABOUT YOUR PRECIOUS, BRITISH, FRILL-FILLED LIFE AS A LIEUTENANT OF THE BARON'S! Try being chased, kidnapped, like, _twice_, and all-around harassed by the guy! Not knowing if tomorrow's the day you slip up, fall prey, and are captured with no escape! Not only that, but knowing every day that you never asked for any of this! You never wanted the power! _HE _changed me into the ONE THING that I never wanted be!" A good chunk of Pete's blind rage was replaced with regret. "And one more thing to add… the feeling that if you do mess up, it could mean THREE OTHER _LIVES TAKEN_. The only things that **I** have left…"

Sorel bit his lip, accidentally drawing blood with his fangs. "Enough of this going at it between you and me and general _bullshit_. You die!" Any trace of his former proper, British accent had disappeared again.

Not waiting for Sorel to take the first move, Pete spun his foot around in a circle, but Sorel dodged. He countered another couple of hits from Pete. Then he dodged another two.

"STOP BLOCKING, GODDAMMIT, AND FIGHT ME!" Pete shouted, enraged, at Sorel.

"Me, too!" Andrew slashed Sorel's shoulder with one of his two rapiers, ripping the leather jacket.

Sorel's mouth dropped. "That right there was GOOD LEATHER, you little rat!" Sorel whipped around suddenly to look at Claire and her friends. He growled loudly, prompting Claire and her friends to turn around and see what the problem was.

Claire cocked her head to the right. "Sir, what's the-"

"I'LL TELL YOU WHAT'S THE MATTER! THERE ARE FIVE OF YOU AND YOU CAN'T EVEN KILL THE FREAKING WEAKEST ONE IN THE GROUP?!"

Claire shrank back. "B-b-but, Sorel! Sir! We're trying-"

"YOU'RE NOT TRYING!" Sorel's eyes were wild and his voice was growing hoarse. "I think I know what the problem here is. Just what I said earlier: there are five of you. There's obviously a distraction problem here…"

Claire knitted her blond eyebrows and looked at her group. "You… think we should add more?"

"More! More!" Noodle said enthusiastically.

"More?" Alicia pondered.

"But five's the charm!" Braids lied.

"…five… is okay… or not…" Chris mumbled, timidly picking at her baseball bat's handle.

"More? No, no… there needs to be _less_."

"Oh…" Claire said. "Wait, huh?"

Sorel lifted his sword in the air and tossed it, landing a direct hit, getting Alicia in the heart.

Alicia whined. "You know, you're a meanie, aren't you?! I think my dad was a meanie, actually he was kind of abusive. Was that abusive? But then the fuzz came, but then the fuzz turned out to be vampires, and- WAIT! I can't die! I'm not done ranting!" She faded away before she was through with her favorite activity: talking.

"And another!" Sorel telekinetically lifted his sword and aimed it at Chris.

"Ep!" She squeaked. When Sorel tossed, she dodged and narrowly avoided getting hit.

"Think you're clever, huh?" Sorel flicked his wrist and the sword came back around and hit her in the back.

The pale girl looked down at the bloody sword. "I… got… staked…?" She whispered. Right before fading away, she turned to face Sorel. "YOU'RE AN ASSHOLE!" She screeched, loud enough to echo off the stone structure before she too faded away.

"One more ought to do the trick…" Sorel hissed.

"QUIT IT, YOU MENTAL PATIENT!" Patrick threw a garlic grenade Sorel's way.

"Ah! Coming to join our fight now, eh?" Sorel caught it and tossed it to the left before it exploded.

"We could use the help…" Andrew murmured.

"Where'd that Claire girl go?" Sorel looked around. "She must've left. What a pain. I'll be sure to kill her if I see her and her friends around for negligence of duty and/or disloyalty."

Andrew and Pete exchanged a look. Suddenly, Andrew stepped forward to Sorel. "So, how would you like your good leather jacket chopped up like sushi?"

"About as much has you'd like your face the same way," Sorel veered to the side to avoid Andrew's first slash. But Andrew got him on the bicep with his other rapier.

Sorel also turned around just in time to see that Pete ahd a perfectly aimed fist coming right towards his face.

Pete summoned all his strength into his fist, clenching his muscles to the point of pain. He wished to take this chance of strength-wasting to maybe end the battle right now.

Or, this would've been the plan if Sorel had not telekinetically placed Patrick right in front of the fist at the last second.

_**WHUD.**_

Letting out a yelp of pain, Patrick slid a whopping twenty feet before hitting a tombstone at a high speed, causing it to tilt a little.

"OH…!" Andrew twitched.

"Ohhh," Sorel smiled, crossed his arms, and imitated Claire by cocking his head to one side.

Pete was silent in shock.

Sorel turned to Pete. "Oh dear… do you need a handkerchief, Peter?" He had his British accent back, this time mockingly. "It appears you have your ally's blood on your knuckles."

Pete ignored Sorel. "… That wasn't my fault."

"So it wasn't YOUR fist, then?" Sorel teased.

"No… it was my fist… but you did that." Pete locked eyes with Sorel. "You make everything worse! The only thing you do that doesn't hurt anybody is drink friggin' beer and eat friggin' candy! You're worse than The Baron!"

"Worse… or better?" Sorel asked, a mocking grin dancing across his features.

"AHH!" Pete threw a hard left hook, but Sorel caught it. He pulled Pete forward and drove his other hand across his jaw. He then threw Pete to the ground and pulled his sword back into his hand.

"Your party ends here, Pete!" Sorel pointed his sword downward, ready to stake Pete. Suddenly, he gritted his teeth and squeezed his eyes in pain. "What in the HELL?!"

"I think this hurts." While Sorel was busy, Andrew had driven a rapier into Sorel's left foot. He pulled out his other rapier. "And this little piggy got stabbed in revenge for PATRICK!" He stabbed his other rapier into Sorel's other foot.

"I'll THROTTLE YOU!" Sorel grabbed Andrew by the neck and lifted him into the air. Pete took the opportunity to plant his hands on the ground and push up. He slammed both feet into Sorel's chin, knocking Andrew's rapiers free of the ground, Sorel's feet free of Andrew's rapiers, Andrew free of Sorel's clutches, and one of Sorel's fangs free of his jaw. Sorel telekinetically caught himself in midair and dropped back downward, slashing Pete down the side. As he hit the ground, he kicked Pete back. Andrew caught his swords and stabbed forward, but Sorel blocked the rapiers with his own blade and pushed Andrew back. As Pete got up, groaning and clutching his wound, Sorel slid a loose gravestone under him and flipped him away. He noticed Patrick getting to his feet. "So, Gadget Boy, you want a turn?"

Patrick was about to say he'd rather not, but in front of him he saw something hidden under a headstone. He picked it up. It was his stake crossbow! And it had a hot pink post-it note attached. He read the note. _Sorry about the baseball bat thing. Will this make it up to you?_ "Sure! Why not?" Patrick aimed the crossbow at Sorel and slid in a stake.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"This is getting tiring!" Sorel commented. He had ignored the rain of stakes Patrick fired around him, ignored the blows Pete (attempted to) deliver, and countered all of Andrew's double-sworded strikes. What Sorel had failed to mention, however, was that he was not only getting tired of the fighting but he was actually getting legitimately _tired_. And that's terrible.

"What's wrong? Finally feeling normal?" Pete teased.

Sorel twitched. "I… am not… NORMAL." He whipped around and flicked his fingers diagonally in the air. And despite the fact that Pete was standing a good eight feet away from Sorel, Sorel's telekinetic powers had created a long, diagonal cut across Pete's torso.

Pete slowly looked down as blood began to rush from it. "Okay… okay… you can do it…" He swallowed. "Wasn't that deep, though."

Sorel's eyes darkened. _WASN'T THAT __**DEEP**_

Letting out a vicious growl, Sorel sent a telekinetic pulse of such strength towards Andrew's way that he was knocked back to into a tall, marble headstone, knocking it over. Turning around to face Patrick, Sorel telekinetically picked up four stakes that Patrick had shot at him. "Patrick, dear boy… let's play a game. It's called 'pin'."

"…pin?" Patrick squeaked. Sorel kicked Patrick onto his back and shot one stake forward. Sorel smiled as he got a direct hit: right on Patrick's left hand, going through his hand and into the ground, pinning him.

Patrick cried out in a combination of fear and pain, and desperately grabbed the stake, trying to lodge it loose while Sorel stepped forward, slowly and ominously. He only succeeded in causing more pain.

"NO! Leave him alone!" Pete grabbed Sorel's shoulder.

Sorel turned around and threw Pete against the wall of the stone shed with his powers. "That's ENOUGH, I said." He stepped forward and dug his one fang into the flesh of Pete's neck.

"AGH! NOT AGAIN! YOU SICKO!" Pete shouted.

Sorel then suddenly reared his head back with great speed and strength, dragging his sharp fang across Pete's flesh, ripping it.

Pete clutched the wound that was gushing blood. "Aggghh…"

Sorel picked up his silver sword and tossed it straight at Pete. "Enough,"

And the sword hit bull's-eye. Because Pete looked down and saw the silver sword sticking directly out of his heart.

* * *


	21. Just the Kind of Boy That I Am

**Disclaimer: I own little within. Made with love.**

**I have a little something in this chapter that might surprise you a bit... an old friend comes for a cameo...**

**And before I forget, I have props to give: a fellow writer on this site, Dark Amystika. Her FOB-SixteenCandles fic wasn't as well-recieved as mine (for some reason I'm still figuring out) and she got lots of haters. But I still applaud her (and anyone else, I know there are others, like angelofdragons and others unnamed) for making her own, and remember DA! Look up to FOB for this kind of thing: Fall Out Boy has haters too, and they take them with a turn of the cheek and a flick of the tattooed wrist ('cept not ink-less Patrick).**

* * *

Pete stared at the silver sword sticking out of his heart. His thoughts were racing, but none were winning the race. He looked down at his hands; the outer edges of his palms were ever so slowly turning to dust. 

Joe looked over from where Gerard had his arms pinned. "No… NO! PETE!" Andrew also stumbled up from the pile of crumbled tombstone he was lying on.

Pete, suddenly regaining presence of mind reached up, grabbed the sword, and began to pull.

Sorel's victorious smile faded. "WHAT?!"

With a pained grunt, Pete pulled the blood-covered sword safely out of his heart and halfheartedly dropped it.

Sorel shook his head and looked up at Pete, who was still undead. "You were wrong, boy. You ARE just like him." Pete had stopped hearing what Sorel was saying by now and was standing, bent over, panting and clutching his newly bleeding wound as an equal amount of blood dripped from his open mouth.

"Goodbye," Sorel lifted Pete mentally and tossed him behind himself. And it wasn't until that last telekinetic move did Sorel realize that doing that had become difficult due to loss of energy.

Pete was tossed back about fifteen feet and horizontally hit the back of an oversized, silver-colored, granite headstone hard. He flopped limply on to the ground on his stomach and slid his hand underneath himself to his bloody wound. Voices were calling his name, but he didn't bother to look towards them and reassure them that everything was fine (it wasn't, anyway). Just when he was sure he was going to pass out, Pete looked up into the dark, dead, thin forest next to the graveyard. But what really caught Pete's eye was the well-dressed person strolling along the edge of the graveyard and forest, whistling, generally looking content with the world, and most importantly, twirling his cane.

Pete's eyes widened at the vampire. "Huh… The Baron?! Wha…?"

The Baron continued to stroll along without noticing Pete. In fact, The Baron had just passed him by a couple of feet when Pete finally gave in to his weakness and passed out.

----------

Patrick stared, panting, at the stake in his hand. He had given up trying to pull it out, and was thinking about just plain _giving up_. Pete was done for the rest of the fight at least, his hand was permanently damaged for all he knew, and he had no idea where Joe or Andrew were. He decided to listen in to the voices he heard in the background, but his mind was a strange combination of 'frenzied, hectic chaos' (for his senses) and 'slow as molasses in the wintertime' (for his actual thoughts) to distinguish them in any way.

"Nice shot, sir!" _Sir… Gerard or Mikey, I guess…_

"Which one?"

"Both!"

"No, I hit three,"

"Oh. All three, I guess."

"I threw the loh-hair one innoo a tombsone," _Huh?_

"N you ssed eet oer er shler?" _What are they… a different language…?_

"Ehfrr shkk ng mm," Now Patrick realized what was going on. He looked over at his wound from where he lay on the ground, suddenly realizing how much blood had come from it. Enough blood that his mind was clouding and he couldn't hear what they were saying.

Patrick turned frantically around to see what Andrew was doing. Andrew appeared to have stood up again and was facing Sorel.

Patrick was watching Sorel and Andrew go at it. A hit here, a block there, and within thirty seconds, Andrew was deemed losing.

----------

Mikey swung his highly dangerous, flaming Morningstar right over Joe's head almost igniting some hairs.

"DUDE! You're going to, like, light the whole place on fire! Including you!" Joe jumped away with a jerk.

"I don't care! I'm going to prove myself loyal!" Mikey shouted in anger. "I don't care if it means being a martyr!"

"YOU'RE CRAZY!" Joe hollered back. "You would sacrifice your life for your gang leader?!"

Mikey stepped back, panting, and smiled. "Would you sacrifice yourself for one of your friends?"

Joe stared back at him with his light blue eyes. "That… is a good point."

"Answer my question,"

"…Yup."

"And I would sacrifice myself for my brother as well. He would do the same for me." Mikey and Joe continued their own little staring contest. "See? We're not so evil after all." Mikey jerked his head in the direction for the fight Sorel was involved in. "We just prefer to have friends in _high places_. And in case you didn't notice, you and your friends are lodged pretty low in the vampire world." He laughed. "Maybe if you didn't have so many more foes than friends, we would become your allies."

Joe blinked and looked down.

"I win."

"Shut up; I wasn't even playing the staring game."

"Sore loser."

"SHUT UP!" Joe shouted back.

Mikey swung with the Morningstar. This time, Joe kicked it instead of jumping away.

"Haha, you fool!" Mikey giggled in a creepy way. "Look at your foot! _It's on fire!_" Another strange, shaky giggle. "You're such an-"

Mikey was cut off when Joe kicked him in the face, burning his face and knocking one fang out.

"Haaa. My foot may be on fire, but now you've got a smoking shoeprint on your face," Joe pointed out. Then he stomped his foot in a mound of dirt. "See? Now my foot's out and you look like a burn victim!"

"SHUT IT!" Mikey spun on one foot, nearly knocking Joe's head off as the flaming, spiked steel ball spinning dangerously. He then swung forward once, twice, three times. Joe dodged them all. Mikey swung again, destroying a concrete angel statue.

A shard of concrete lodged itself in Joe's side. "AH! My general rib area!" Joe fell to his knees.

Mikey grinned and spun the Morningstar above his head. "Say goodnight!"

"GOODNIGHT!" Joe punched Mikey in the gut, grabbed a wing from the statue that had stayed in one piece, and slammed Mikey over the head with it. Joe was rewarded with a bunch of crackling noises from Mikey's skull. "That had to hurt."

"_It… did…_" Mikey fell to the ground, clutching his head. Blood was seeping from between his fingers. "Ow… a lot…"

Joe began feeling around in his pocket. "Stake… stake… no stake here… oh crap! I'm out of stakes!" He shrugged and grabbed the angel wing again. "Oh well. I can't slay you, but I can beat you over the head with part of a statue for a while."

"But I can kill you!" Still obviously in pain, Mikey picked up his Morningstar and swung it. Joe tried to parry it. However, he ended up parrying the wooden handle instead of the ball or the chain (a concrete wing is very heavy, and not really meant for use as an advanced bludgeon). The ball slashed Joe across the shoulder, but the wing smashed thru the wooden handle and kept going, impacting with Mikey's head again. The flaming ball flew off somewhere, landing in the distance with a smashing sound, and Mikey fell to the ground, bleeding and mumbling about formalwear.

Joe nearly fell to the ground too. "CRAP! MY SHOULDER!" He staggered over to a large gravestone and sat propped against it. "At least the wound cauterized itself."

----------

_Uh-oh. I'm losing! NOT GOOD! _Andrew thought frantically. _Get Sorel unfocused. Attack him with one rapier, then go in with the other. First low, then high. No too obvious. First medium, then high. Yeah. That'll do. _"I noticed you're not using your telekinetic power as much, huh?" Andrew struggled with Sorel pulling on the handles of his swords, trying to take them away.

"It's none of your business!" Sorel snarled. Andrew noticed that one of Sorel's grips was a little lighter than the others for a second. He ripped the thin sword in his left hand from Sorel's grip and, with a grunt, tried to stab him as hard as he could at Sorel's ribs. Sorel jerked sideways. Just as Andrew had planned, Sorel's other grip loosened and he was able to quickly rip it away and slash Sorel in the face, creating a fine red line across his cheek and nose. In an instant, it began to bleed. Sorel veered back away from Andrew and clutched his new wound.

"SIR!" Gerard called out. He decided this was his cue to help out.

----------

Patrick stared, now in shock, as Gerard came to step in to the fight. Even delirious as he now was, he could see the fear on Andrew's face at now having to face an extremely angry, albeit tired Sorel _and_ his most loyal assistant. Patrick turned to the side and noticed something. _Crossbow. Huh. OH, my crossbow! Yes! WITH A STAKE! YEEESSS! _Patrick stretched with his free arm as much as he could. One more meter turned into ten more inches, turned into ten more centimeters, then into one… more… centimeter…

_YES! GOT IT! THANK YOU, KARMA, FOR FINALLY KICKING IN! _Patrick smiled as he used his outstretched fingers to grab the handle of the loaded crossbow. He took it and aimed it at Sorel's heart like a pro.

The stake was shot. And Sorel caught it out of the corner of his eye just in time- for the most part.

Sorel had veered to avoid the stake puncturing his heart, but it still got him in the chest.

"SOREL! I mean, SIR!" Gerard scurried over.

Sorel ignored the blood. "I think he… just got my lung…" He wheezed.

"…j… JUST GOT YOUR LUNG?! OH for- stop fighting, sir!"

"NO!" Sorel growled. "I've had enough of this! We should've beaten them long ago!"

"And we'll do it again! When we gather more members for our gang!" Gerard pressed. "NOT NOW!"

"DON'T YOU DARE…" Sorel tried to stand up again. "…GIVE ME AN ORDER."

Gerard gulped. "Y-y-yes, sir. But I really have to insist-"

"Insist this!" Sorel turned to Andrew, who had his back turned to Sorel when he went over to help Patrick. Sorel whipped his hand across the air and a deep cut sliced across Andrew's back.

"AAHH!" Andrew stumbled forward and on to the ground.

"OH NO! ANDREW!" Patrick had just freed himself.

Sorel laughed/wheezed. "Now you're finally-" he was cut off when his face turned to shock and pain. "AAAGH!"

Pete had his hand on Sorel's neck and was burning it. But he was still bleeding and breathing hard. "Guess who… finally got control… of his… burning powers?"

After about fifteen seconds, Pete finally let go and stumbled back. Sorel collapsed onto the ground. "No… you'll pay… I'll win…"

Gerard walked over to Sorel and stood up him back up again, supporting him. He stared back at the vigilantes. "We're leaving. I'll make you a deal…"

Pete stared back. "Uh, yeah, sure, you-"

"We'll give you time to heal as long as you give us time to heal. Attack us now, attack us in ten minutes, attack us in six hours, attack us _tomorrow _even, and I'll shoot (or stake) you all in your sleep. Deal?"

Pete cringed at Gerard's threat, but nodded weakly. "Deal. Now get out of here."'

Mikey was standing up now as well, clutching his head. "Ohhh… my head… Gerard? Where are you? I hear a ringing noise…"

Gerard called Mikey over and whispered something to him. Mikey held Gerard's shoulder as Gerard teleported the three of them away.

"That was weird…" Joe walked over to Patrick. "Now, what happened to Andrew?"

"OH my God! Andrew!" Patrick had begun to wrap his wound in bandages he apparently had carried on himself. He rushed over to Andrew, who was still lying on the ground. "We have to get him somewhere inside!"

Pete stumbled over slowly. "I say… you get him… somewhere…" He coughed. "…close." With that, Pete collapsed onto his knees and then onto the ground.

"Agh!" Joe went over to Pete a few feet away, leaving Patrick with Andrew.

"Joe…" Patrick mumbled. "What do we do?"

"Huh? Why are you asking… What?" Joe trailed off as he looked back at Patrick. His eyes were pained and tired-looking. Dark circles had appeared under them, rivaling Pete's. His blood loss wasn't enough to make him pass out but was enough to make his already pale face considerably paler.

"I said, where do we go? What do we do?"

"I-… don't know-… I'm not-…" Joe looked at the dead grass and picked at a handful of brown blades in nervous fear. He wasn't prepared for this… leadership? What was he supposed to do? "Do… you have any ideas?" he asked Patrick, his eyes pleading for Patrick to have a plan.

Patrick began to get angry at Joe. "Yes! We have to get under cover! That's an idea! Where do we go?! I can't think of anything; I lost, like, a sixth of my blood! I can't even see straight and I-"

"OKAY! I GET IT!" Joe shouted.

Pete coughed.

Joe shut his eyes and shook his head in a 'no-this-can't-be-happening' sort of way. Brainstorm! "The warehouse?"

"Too far," Patrick shook his head.

"The supermarket?"

"Possibly inhabited by Claire or maybe even Sorel,"

Joe clutched his head. He actually had to make an effort to hold back tears of panic for the first time in years. "I DON'T KNOW! The Junkyard?!"

"That's… not a bad idea."

"Really?" Joe felt an instant lift.

"It's the best option."

"Isn't one of them, like, a medic or something?"

"Let's hope,"

* * *

**In this fic, yes, one of them is.**


	22. Fix Me in 45

**Disclaimer: I own little within. Yellow.**

**And it's the end! Here's our lovely cast! (Yeah, it would be, if I was a flippin' billionaire) :**

**Pete****- Pete Wentz**

**Andrew****- Andrew Hurley**

**Patrick****- Patrick Stump(h?)**

**Joe****- Joe Trohman**

**Dirty****- Dirty (legally changed name? Maybe he lost a bet.)**

**Sorel****- Scott Wolfe**

**Gerard****- Gerard Way**

**Mikey****- Mikey Way**

**Ray****- Ray Toro. ****Frank****- Frank Iero. ****Bob****- Bob Briar**

**Brandon- Brandon Flowers**

**Gabe****- Gabe Saporta (spelling?). ****Elisa****- Elisa Anna Schwartz (replaced by other member? Whatever. It's Elisa for the fic.)**

**Claire****- Hayden Panettiere. **

**Flashback Schoolteacher****- Bam Margera**

**Weapon-toting Girl (never to have a name…)- Lily Allen (she would have to be made to look younger, but don't they do that a lot in Hollywood?)**

**Junk Yard Heroes: Travis- ****Travis McCoy.** **Disashi****- Disashi Lumumba-Kasongo (that's a mouthful). ****Matt****- Matt McGinley. ****Eric****- Eric Roberts. **

**And now, I would like to give thanks… first, to my reviewers… Squirt the Vampire, ricco-the-penguin, Thanagarian Angel, angelofdragons, Inkstained.Angel.91, feggled49, krazykiwigirl27, Shun-The-Nonbeliever, defy the stars, c.h.i.c.a.g.o. x pillows, Madibug377, (my finger is getting tired. But that's a good thing in this case!), 'Your Stalker', SophisticatedRebel, Dark Amystika, and just because I'm so generally happy with how the fic turned out, even you too, Cruel2Jellicles.**

**Mad props out to my co-writer, avatarjk137 for adding to humor and dialogue, helping me out of blocks, and contributing to a good share of the action scenes.**

**And thanks to Fall Out Boy, for creating (the producers of the video too, respectively) this wonderful little video. Hmmm… wouldn't that be something if they ever saw this fic? (-ponders-)**

**ALSO: NOTE! There will be a third (and final) installment. To give you an idea, here's what I'm going to say about it.**

**1. Lots of new characters! And some old favorites, too!**

**2. Will be more fun and fast-paced than the first two (like a lot of three-quels are)**

**3. Will tie up loose ends (how can it not, though? It's the last one. Seriously.)**

**4. Be prepared for an alternate ending-type thing. If it ends up that I do have an alternate ending, be prepared for drastic differences in overall emotion between the two endings.**

**Anyways, if you want to read the three-quel, that'd be great! I'd love to have your reviews for one last story. If not, I won't force you to read the third one (and I won't be 'hurt' or anything). You can accept this chapter as the end-all. If you don't want to read the three-quel though, keep in mind that you will probably be missing out on legitimate closure.**

**-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**

"Well, they're both pretty seriously injured here…" Disashi and the other 'Junk Yard Heroes' crouched beside Pete, who was set on the ground next to Andrew. Joe and Patrick were kneeling adjacent to Andrew. The whole gang was inside the shed, which looked a lot better inside than out, with fresh, white-painted walls and relatively still-in-good-condition secondhand furniture.

"And what exactly are the damages?" Patrick asked.

"For you or them?" Disashi's smiling teeth stood out against his dark skin.

Patrick sighed and closed his eyes. "Them."

"Well, Pete got staked, with _silver_, but he's alive, all right. And Andrew got slashed all across the back. How'd that happen, anyway?"

"Sorel," Joe and Patrick answered at the same time.

"What's a Sorel?" Disashi asked.

"Isn't it a mushroom?" Travis ventured. "How'd a mushroom manage that?"

"_He's _a vampire," Joe replied. "A gang leader. Used to be a Dandy. On a Friggin' Dangerous Vampire Richter Scale, or FDVRS, Sorel ranks about an eleven on a scale of one to ten."

"Oookay," Matt said from where he was lounging on a brown, frayed couch. "Do you think Sorel has anything to do with all those vamps that came by our junkyard earlier today?" He fiddled with the zipper on his blue-and-green jacket.

"WHAT?! Why didn't you tell us?" Joe yelled.

Travis narrowed his eyes. "…Dunno."

"'DUNNO'?! THAT'S IMPORTANT!"

"…I guess sooo."

Joe clutched his head in frustration and let out a growl.

Then there was a moment of awkward silence. Matt fiddled, his zipper making (of course) a 'zzzip' sound as he moved it up and down. Eric read a _Men's Health _magazine. Patrick hummed to himself. Disashi moved different bottles of anti-biotic and infection prevention-type medicines around on the floor, inspecting them and trying to figure out which ones to use.

He was suddenly aware of five other guys staring at him as he did this. Disashi put down a bottle of Hydrogen Peroxide. "What's wrong? Haven't you ever seen a black man do medical matters before?!"

"Nope," Joe stared. "Except on _House, M.D._"

"Oh. Well, there's a first time for everything…"

"Uhhhn…" Andrew stirred. He began to get up from where he was lying on his stomach. "Huuuh… where am I?"

"At the junkyard," Patrick said.

"Fascinating. My skin hurts."

"That would be your back."

He looked beside him to Pete, still unconscious. "OHMYGOD, is Pete dead?!"

"What? No! He's alive! He's just… you know… kinda dead. He's not really any deader than he was five months ago."

"Yeah," Disashi said. "It's time for you to take your medicine," He held a spoonful of menacing-looking, bright red goop towards Andrew.

"NEVER!" Andrew hit with the back of his hand and the spoon and spoonful went flying, tossing the glop over the Junk Yard Heroes (except for Matt, who was on the couch and giggled at their medicine-covered faces).

"What'd you do that for?!" Eric tossed his newly dampened _Men's Health_ aside.

"I hate that medicine!" Andrew protested, crossing his arms.

"Take the medicine or your wound will get gangrene!" Disashi insisted. He held jabbed another spoonful towards Andrew. "Take it!"

"NO!"

"I'M NOT KIDDIN'! TAKE IT!"

"AND NEITHER AM I! NO!"

"STOP YELLING!" Pete began to get up. "Idiots! Jeez!"

"Okay, good. Now you can set an example and take your medicine." Disashi held the thick liquid out to Pete.

"NO WAY!" Pete shot his foot up, kicking the spoonful over his head.

Travis looked horrified. "Pete, yo! What did you do?!"

Pete made a 'duh' face. "I kicked the evil medicine. What did you think I did? Made love to it?"

"Nooo! Your chest!"

Pete looked down at his new bandages which had lost it's clear, clean-looking white to give way to an ugly, bright red spot. "Ugh. Oh. When I kicked the medicine I must've opened some stitches back up or something."

Eric looked nauseated and turned his head away from the wound. Patrick looked worried and Disashi held his forehead in frustration and swore.

----------

"Thanks again for fixing us up," Joe turned to the exit of the shed. There was still about an hour of darkness left for them to make them trip and then some.

"Uh, no problem, but how are you going to get home?" Travis asked him.

"Oh, crap! I'm so used to having the Vigilante Mobile around that I… oh well. We'll rent a car!"

"We don't have money," Patrick responded flatly. "We're broke,"

"SINCE WHEN?"

"For a while now! We've been looting a lot lately because everyone who's still here is price-gouging like crazy! I've been telling you guys we've been slowly running out of money!"

Travis held his finger in front of them in a call for silence when there was a knock at the door. "Who is it…" he looked at his watch. "…at five A.M.?"

"A very powerful vampire,"

"Hang on one minute!" Travis responded politely. He held a sledgehammer over his shoulder while going to the door. "Good morning!" He stood at an angle so he couldn't see the threatening hammer.

"I'm not here to attack you," The Dark Priest said to Travis, picking up on his defensiveness and stepping inside. "I need to talk to them," He pointed to the vigilantes.

"Yeah. Run along, guys!" Andrew made a waving motion with his hand at the other guys.

"Okay. Sure. We'll be going now." Matt responded with a smile. "This isn't our house or anything…" Joe gave a Matt a little shove to encourage his leaving.

The Dark Priest turned to the four left when the door had shut. "I'm going to get straight to the point. I've found a cure for vampirism."

Pete's mouth dropped. "YOU HAVE?! Give it to me!" He held out his pale hands like a little kid demanding his share of a bag of jawbreakers.

"I need to first discuss with you something about the ingredients." The suited vamp took the perfectly folded list from his pocket. It wasn't on a piece of yellowed parchment or anything antique-looking like Pete had expected it would. There were two different computer-typed ingredient lists on white printer paper.

The Dark Priest cleared his throat and continued. "The list is extensive. I need your-" He motioned to all four of them. "-assistance to get the mixture."

"Wait…" Joe eyed the typed list. "Where did you get that cure?"

"I stole it off The Baron and typed it up on a computer myself to make it easier to read. It pays to inspect his houses, you know. Just a suggestion."

Joe eyed the Dark Priest now instead. "Aaannnd how do we know you're not lying to us?"

The Dark Priest looked Joe in the eye. "You four are not the only ones wishing for the cure. I, too now regret my decision to become a vampire."

Pete hadn't spoken up before; he had doubted the priest as much as Joe did but hungered for the cure too much to do anything to change the Dark Priest's mind about giving them what may be their only chance to even come close. But Pete's thoughts poked their way through this time. "I don't 'regret' becoming one. I never wanted to be one in the first place. You're the only one in this room who-"

The Dark Priest held his hand in front of Pete's face. "We can talk about that later. I want to get to informing you." He handed Patrick a list of ingredients, obviously thinking of Patrick as the best choice for the job. "I need your assistance in retrieving the ingredients. I can't get them all by myself; it would take too long. Sorel hates me because I remind him of The Baron, plus he's a bit stronger than me, so he'd hunt down and slay me before I finish the list. Especially since he doesn't want this cure floating around."

The four heads crowded around the list to see what was required of them to retrieve.

**11. Sage (1 dram)**

**12. Rosemary (1 dram)**

**13. Blood of a virgin (at least 50 milliliters to take proper effect)**

**14. Redwood leaves (5 grains, powdered)**

**15. 6 cloves of garlic**

**16. Vampiric blood collected from at least 5 different vampires. At least 50 milliliters each.**

**17. 1 cup coconut milk (yes, seriously. About 40 milliliters)**

**18. One half of a cup red wine (aged at least 50 years) **

**19. One Yule log (to boil potion)**

**20. Holy water (40 milliliters)**

**-This mixture must be consumed out of a container of either wood or silver.**

**-No injections- you must ingest it **

**-Doesn't matter what time of day (won't make a difference in sun or at night)**

**-Taking less or considerably more of the mixture may produce undesired effects.**

**-WARNING: Symptoms of the cure taking effect will be very painful. Vampire in question likely to be volatile/unstable/without control/all of the above. Restraints highly recommended.**

Murmurs of opinion rose.

"WTF? Coconut milk?"

"That's a lot of garlic, dude."

"Virgin blood. Fuck-a-doodle-doo."

"'Volatile/unstable'?"

"Why the hell would I want to inject it anyway?"

"Imagine… 'Hello, virgin! May I have some blood?'"

"Frankly, this 'cure' looks like a load of bullshit, Patrick."

Like the others before, Patrick had doubts of the Dark Priest himself, too. "Uh, I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but we DO have reason to distrust you. How do we know you're only sending us off on a goose chase to distract Sorel while you get the ingredients yourself?"

"I've already established with you that I need the cure. And to prove to you that your job has value in this, I have not only given you half the ingredients but half the directions as well. You have guidelines, I have instructions on how to create it. "

_True…_

The Dark Priest let them give the list a once-over and spoke again. "I expect to see you _here_…" He handed them another slip of paper. "…in exactly two months, starting today. If you can't get there in time, I also gave you a way you can reach me."

Pete took the slip of paper. "This… location isn't even in the tri-state area,"

"Neither are the ingredients," Patrick murmured, looking over the list. "I'm pretty sure none of these ingredients are native to here, or they're just hard to get."

"Which is why you should get started as soon as possible," The older vamp replied.

"We don't have any money or means of transportation!" Andrew piped up, obviously hoping that the Dark Priest would offer to lend them some money.

"I suggest you work on that." He nodded to Andrew, turning to leave.

"Wait!" Patrick protested. "Do you seriously think we can… in two months! This is going way too fast…!"

"Would you prefer to wait around a year more?" The Dark Priest responded with no emotion, his back to them. "Every minute you age, Peter won't. He already has roughly two years on all of you."

"Right…" Patrick mumbled. And then the Dark Priest was gone, and the only reminders of him were the list and a maniacal laugh in the distance.

"Wellll…" Joe said after a minute of silence. "We should get going before 'lights on', huh?"

The others followed Joe out of the door and out of the junkyard without a word.

Patrick almost stepped on a little plastic object. "What's this?"

"Looks like a little plastic bomb… I think it comes apart…" Andrew said.

Patrick dropped it and jumped away.

"WELL, DON'T DROP IT!" Joe shouted. "THROW IT!"

"WHERE DO I THROW IT?! THE JUNKYARD?!"

"A bomb that says 'Property of Alicia' on it?" Pete asked.

"Oh. How about that!" Joe picked it up. "It must belong to that girly who got staked,"

Patrick took it from him. "We should return it to Claire when we see it. You know, so she can have something from her dead friend?"

"'Kay. We'll go to the supermarket later this week."

They had already been walking past the sidewalk around the fenced-in junkyard when Pete finally spoke up.

"I'm really turning out to be a lot like The Baron aren't I?" He had his hood up, despite the fact that the sun hadn't risen.

"Whaaat? No way!" Patrick made it sound like Pete suggested Patrick eat the piece of unidentifiable roadkill they just passed on the empty street.

"Maybe you're just seeing it the wrong way then…" Pete said glumly.

"Stop fishing. You're not like The Baron."

Pete ignored Patrick's response. "What, with the fact that I'm always fighting..."

"Oh, that doesn't mean anything!" Joe defended Pete (against himself). "The Baron wasn't violent… well, if he was, he sure was stealthy about it… and you're not 'stealthy'."

"And now I got the burning hands thing…"

"That only has to do with the fact that he sired you. You're not 'turning into him'!" Patrick insisted.

"I'm growing resistant to the mixture… like he said I would." Pete murmured.

"Then take more of it!" Joe replied curtly.

"I've been thinking about it…" Pete stepped away from the middle of the sidewalk and turned his attention to the fence around the empty lot they were passing, as if it were the most beautiful fence he'd ever seen and it required the full attention of his eyes. "Maybe…" Another pause, as if he was straining himself to say what was on his mind (and he was). "…You… shouldn't stay so close to me anymore. I'm starting to get…"

Another long, uncomfortable pause.

"…tempted."

When another silence occurred, Andrew took out the compact mirror. "What do you see?" He held it out towards Pete.

Pete glared. "Nothing. The fence behind me."

"What else?"

"What he wanted me to be."

"Wrong! Wait. Oh. Oops. I think I just made things worse. Okay, let's try it the other way. Put your hand on your chin."

Pete rolled his eyes and obeyed.

Andrew looked back at him. "What do you feel?"

"My chin, idiot," Pete growled.

"Now move your hand up. What do you feel?"

"My lips," He glared. "And two fangs."

"Move it up. Then what?"

"My nose,"

"Up."

"My forehead."

"Up."

"My _hair_. Then what?"

"Feel a hat?"

"…No," Pete looked confused (but still angry).

"Are you sure? No fedora?"

Pete stared back at Andrew and opened his mouth, as if to say something, but then just looked down.

"Make a deal with me, Pete." Andrew gave him his hand to shake. "Until you A.) put a Dandy fedora on your head, and B.) Murder the three of us, you do not consider yourself The Baron."

"He doesn't drink tea either," Joe commented.

Pete stared back at Andrew, his anger gone.

"Can we go home now? Or get something to eat? I'm hungry!" Andrew whined, ignoring the handshake he didn't get.

"YEAH! Me, too!" Joe agreed. "Let's go get unhealthy, caloriffic fast food! I took an online quiz that said due to how much we train we should be eating like, a thousand calories more than we are a day,"

"Which would explain why we are scrawny boys and not chest-haired men!" Andrew thrust his fist into the hair.

"Fast food is about the only thing we can afford right now…" Patrick took a few meager bills out of his pocket. "We can afford McDonald's. That's it."

"Do you think the McDonald's is running?" Pete asked.

"Are you kidding? That place is like a cockroach… it'll be all lit up when everyone else is gone!" Joe answered. He led the way down the street to the illuminated fast food shop down the street, where a non-vampiric, cheerful clerk was eager to take their order. Joe was barely 'leading the way', though. For the first time in a while, the four walked in unison.

* * *


End file.
